Web-borne threats hit 31% of Indian users in Q1: Study

A whopping 31 per cent of Indian users were hit by web-borne threats between January and March 2019, said a new study by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab.

Exploiting vulnerabilities in browsers and their plugins was a common method used by cybercriminals, according to the Kaspersky Security Bulletin 2019.

Infection in this type of attack takes place when visiting an infected website, without any intervention from the user and without their knowledge.

This method is used in the majority of attacks. Among them, file-less malware is the most dangerous, said the report.

Another common method used by cybercriminals is social engineering.

These attacks require user participation - a user has to download a malicious file to her computer.

This happens when cybercriminals make the victim believe she is downloading a legitimate programme.

In the January-March 2019 period, Kaspersky Lab products detected 39,976,902 different Internet-borne cyberthreats on the computers of Kaspersky Security Network participants in India.

Overall, 31 per cent of users were attacked by web-borne threats during this period, placing India in the 26th place worldwide when it comes to the dangers associated with surfing the web.

India is placed 14th worldwide as the country of origin for global online attacks, said the report.

--IANS

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