Sunday , August 2 2026

2023 Threat Report: Social Engineering and Web Attacks waves

The overall cyber-threat risks have significantly increased during the second quarter of 2023. The number of unique web attacks being blocked has increased by 24%, resulting in over 700 million unique attacks being blocked every month. Social engineering and web-related threats have become increasingly prevalent among the various cyber risks. These threats include scams, phishing, adware, Trojans, file infectors, and other similar risks. These types of threats have seen a significant increase compared to other cyber threats.

Threat Vectors Based on Attack Types

CISA alerts to cyberattacks affecting U.S. water utilities

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warns of a big rise in attacks on internet-connected programmable logic controllers...
Read More
CISA alerts to cyberattacks affecting U.S. water utilities

“CyberStrike” AI-Driven Security Platform for Automated Testing

A new open-source project named CyberStrike aims to be the first AI tool made for offensive security. It can turn...
Read More
“CyberStrike” AI-Driven Security Platform for Automated Testing

AIDCQ Propose to invest $2 billion in AI data center in Bangladesh

Many countries are now showing interest to invest in the data center industry in Banglades especially in AI data centers....
Read More
AIDCQ Propose to invest $2 billion in AI data center in Bangladesh

NVIDIA BlueField Flaw Enables Code Execution Attacks

NVIDIA has revealed a big flaw with its BlueField DPUs and ConnectX networking systems. This issue could let attackers run...
Read More
NVIDIA BlueField Flaw Enables Code Execution Attacks

Massive customer data from India’s Bank of Baroda surfaced online

India's leading state-owned lender Bank of Baroda acknowledged Monday a security incident after reports that approximately 1 terabyte of customer...
Read More
Massive customer data from India’s Bank of Baroda surfaced online

Active Exploits Hit Fortinet, Arista: AI Discovered Linux Kernel Zero-Day

CISA has put the Fortinet FortiOS vulnerability CVE-2025-68686 in its list of known exploited flaws after ongoing attacks. The flaw...
Read More
Active Exploits Hit Fortinet, Arista: AI Discovered Linux Kernel Zero-Day

Sam Altman Claims AI “singularity” has arrived, Where Systems Improve by Themselves

OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman says that AI has reached a big milestone. The technology can now make itself better, leading...
Read More
Sam Altman Claims AI “singularity” has arrived, Where Systems Improve by Themselves

Shinyhunters claimed and set deadline to publish E&Y data

ShinyHunters has publicly claimed responsibility for the Ernst & Young (EY) data breach. The group posted a message on their...
Read More
Shinyhunters claimed and set deadline to publish E&Y data

Microsoft, NVIDIA and CrowdStrike Initiate Alliance for Open-Source AI Security

Nvidia and over 30 tech firms started a group on Monday to create open-source AI tools for protecting against cyber...
Read More
Microsoft, NVIDIA and CrowdStrike Initiate Alliance for Open-Source AI Security

Google Search Results Reportedly Show Claude AI Shared Chats

Claude's share links from Anthropic showed up in public search results. This raised new privacy worries for users who shared...
Read More
Google Search Results Reportedly Show Claude AI Shared Chats

In addition, the blocked attack statistics showed that there were 594 million web-related attacks, 37 million file-based attacks, 14 million email-based attacks, 5 million behavioral threats, 3 million exploits, 600k scripts, and 500k other types of attacks. In the second quarter of 2023, 147 million URLs were blocked along with 61 million blocked files, showing the significant impact of these measures. The analysis focused on Desktop-related attack vectors and Mobile-related malware types, allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of how threat actors carry out their attacks.

ALSO READ:

UK electoral Commission hack exposed data of 40 million voters

Statistical Analysis

Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, Afghanistan, Angola, Ghana, and the Republic of Korea faced the most severe wave of ransomware attacks.

The Avast threat report revealed that the most common coin miners were web miners (various strains), XMRig, FakeKMSminer, VMiner, CoinBitMiner, CoinHelper, and NeoScrypt.

The second quarter of 2023 witnessed a significant 14% decline in information stealer malware. However, the most common info stealer malware were AgentTesla, FormBook, Raccoon Stealer, RedLine, Fareit, Lokibot, and ViperSoftX.

Desktop-related Threats and Mobile related Threats

More hackers are targeting desktop devices and organizations are taking precautions to prevent security breaches. Despite the progress made, threats related to desktops continue to persist.

Scams were responsible for the majority of Desktop-related threats in the pool, making up a whopping 51%. Following closely behind, phishing accounted for 25.6% of the threats. Trojan attacks were at 3.5%, while adware and file infectors made up 3.8% and 2.9%, respectively. Lastly, other types of attacks represented 13.1% of the total.

The rate of scam cases has skyrocketed by an impressive 101.9%, closely trailed by a 6.6% increase in Phishing incidents. However, Trojan and File infectors have seen a reduction from the last quarter.

Mobile-related threats in the last quarter witnessed a staggering surge of 86% in dropper malware. The comprehensive report reveals that Adware represents a staggering 73.6% of the risks encountered. Following closely behind is the notorious Dropper, accounting for 6.1% of the threats. Banker malware stands at 5.8%, while Trojan poses a significant 3.9% risk. Other categories of malware collectively make up 7.5% of the potential dangers.

Avast released a detailed report on the threats of Q2 2023. It includes information about malware, info stealers, ransomware, and related attack methods.

 

Check Also

Bad Epoll

“Bad Epoll” 0-Day Vulnerability Allows Root Access on Linux Servers, Android Devices

A new Linux flaw called “Bad Epoll” (CVE-2026-46242) lets regular users get root access on …