Malware

07/24/2017 - In this article we publish numbers about malware based on two ways of counting. The number of newly appeared malware specimen, and the number of prevented attacks on computers. During the first half of 2017 there were on average 47,4 attempted attacks per computer.

07/20/2017 - The development of any kind of software takes time. Not every function that is planned for the final product is implemented right from the start. It does not come as a surprise that this is also true for the development of malware. At the G DATA Security Labs, a file has sparked the interest of our researchers - this file is interesting for a number of reasons.

07/19/2017 - For a long time, gaming was just considered “a bit of a laugh” or “something for the kids”. Unsurprisingly, the security aspect did not receive a lot of attention – it just wasn’t seen as a problem or particularly relevant. But today’s gamers are not just two players sitting side by side as a dot pongs back and forth across the home computer screen. The opposite is true: with the advent of the...

07/03/2017 - The news talk about a cyber attack when reporting about Petna and WannaCry. This implies purposeful activities aiming at causing damage. On the other hand, cyber-criminals who are in the blackmailing business with ransomware are mainly interested in making easy money. They failed both with WannaCry and even more with Petna. This leaves some open questions.

06/27/2017 [UPDATE: 06/30/2017] - The Petya ransomware, about which the first reports were published in the G DATA blog, occasionally rears its head with some new features (last time as "GoldenEye"). This time is no different - except that this is the first time that Petya uses an exploit from the arsenal of an intelligence agency. We take a look at the current development and keep you updated.

06/13/2017 - WannaCry's encryptor was deactivated by a kill switch. But the worm component is still active. It crawls the internet for vulnerable systems and captures them where possible. It has recently been hitting US hospitals. In addition, the case WannaCry shows that it could have been worse. Time to prepare for the next wave.

05/12/2017 [UPDATE: 06/08/2017] - An outbreak of the latest version of "WannaCry" has been claiming victims in several countries. The speed and ferocity of the outbreak has taken many by surprise. Researchers are as yet puzzled as to the origin of the outbreak which hit 11 countries within just three hours. So far Spain and Russia were are among those who were hit hardest.

05/23/2017 - After the big infection wave that hit thousands of computers all over the world on Friday, May 12, we are taking a look at some things that WannaCry has taught us and some of the aspects that have surprised many.

04/27/2017 - People and media are mostly looking at ransomware as a fairly recent problem. That seems to be logical if you see the steep rise of ransomware the past three years. In fact, the problem is much older than most of us think. For this we need to go back in time to the beginning of December 1989.

04/27/2017 - The Android operating system clearly dominates the mobile market, with a share of around 72 percent. In Germany alone, around 67 percent of smartphone owners use a device with an Android operating system (source: Statcounter). G DATA security experts discovered over 750,000 new Android malware apps in the first quarter of 2017. That represents almost 8,400 new malware instances every day.