Saturday , September 12 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

Urgent Patch! cPanel, GitLab Flaws Expose Users to RCE, File and Credential Theft

GitLab has released an important security update to fix two serious problems. These issues could allow unauthorized file access and...
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Urgent Patch! cPanel, GitLab Flaws Expose Users to RCE, File and Credential Theft

Palo Alto PAN-OS Flaw Enables Root Arbitrary Code Execution

Palo Alto Networks has revealed a serious flaw in PAN-OS. It may let a remote attacker without a password run...
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Palo Alto PAN-OS Flaw Enables Root Arbitrary Code Execution

Critical Check Point VPN flaws allow remote code execution attacks

Check Point Software has revealed and fixed two major VPN flaws, CVE-2026-85102 and CVE-2026-85103. Both have a top CVSS score...
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Critical Check Point VPN flaws allow remote code execution attacks

Cisco confirms CVE-2026-20079 flaw in Secure FMC is exploited in attacks

Cisco has said that a serious security flaw CVE-2026-20079 in its Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) software is being used...
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Cisco confirms CVE-2026-20079 flaw in Secure FMC is exploited in attacks

Hackers exploit PaperCut flaws using hundreds of AI agents, compromising 440 servers globally

A Russian-speaking hacker has used artificial intelligence like never before. They sent out hundreds of AI agents to find and...
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Hackers exploit PaperCut flaws using hundreds of AI agents, compromising 440 servers globally

CISA Says Chinese Firms Extracted Billions of Tokens From Frontier AI Models

Six Chinese AI companies ran large-scale attacks on American AI models since late 2024, according to U.S. cybersecurity and intelligence...
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CISA Says Chinese Firms Extracted Billions of Tokens From Frontier AI Models

Nightmare Eclipse Drops New Microsoft Defender ‘ShieldCrash’ zero-day

An unknown security expert called Nightmare Eclipse has drops a new Microsoft Defender flaw called "ShieldCrash" right after Microsoft released...
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Nightmare Eclipse Drops New Microsoft Defender ‘ShieldCrash’ zero-day

cPanel Flaw Lets Hosting Accounts With Mail Privileges Execute Code as Root

cPanel has shared CVE-2026-67401, a serious SQL injection flaw in EmailTrack. This flaw could allow attackers with permission to take...
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cPanel Flaw Lets Hosting Accounts With Mail Privileges Execute Code as Root

FortiSandbox, FortiOS, FortiProxy ZTNA flaws unveil, while Fortigate firewall actively exploited

An ongoing attack is focused on FortiGate firewalls. Hackers use a serious flaw to install a special Node.js remote access...
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FortiSandbox, FortiOS, FortiProxy ZTNA flaws unveil, while Fortigate firewall actively exploited

Microsoft Patch Tuesday September 2026 Fixed 973 Flaws Fixed, 2 Zero-Days

Microsoft shared its September 2026 security updates on September 8. These updates fix 973 flaws, including two serious issues that...
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Microsoft Patch Tuesday September 2026  Fixed 973 Flaws Fixed, 2 Zero-Days

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.

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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.

 

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