Web threats doubled in India in Q2

Hyderabad: In the second quarter of 2021, India witnessed a dramatic spike in internet-borne threats when compared with the first quarter. The number of web threats during the Q2 almost doubled and the statistics show a concerning rise in the number of threats targeted at Indian internet users during the April-July 2021. According to a […]

Hyderabad: In the second quarter of 2021, India witnessed a dramatic spike in internet-borne threats when compared with the first quarter. The number of web threats during the Q2 almost doubled and the statistics show a concerning rise in the number of threats targeted at Indian internet users during the April-July 2021.

According to a report by global cybersecurity and digital privacy company, Kaspersky, around 8.30 crore different internet-borne cyberthreats were detected in India in Q2 as against 3.76 crore threats detected in January-March period of 2021.

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“This places India in the 37th place worldwide when it comes to the dangers associated with surfing the web. While comparing the threats detected in the second quarter of 2020 and 2021, the number of threats increased almost eight-fold from 1.67 crore (1,67,67,797) threats in Q2 2020 to 8.30 crore (8,30,45,576) threats in Q2 2021,” the report said.

It also mentioned that this type of infection 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 and social engineering attacks are the most dangerous.

Meanwhile, the report also observed a steep decrease in the local threats detected in India from the period between April-July 2021. During this time, Kaspersky products detected and blocked around 2.64 crore (2,64,33,410) local incidents. The number of local threats detected in Q1 2021 were around 3.98 crore (3,98,10,510) and in Q2 2020 these threats accounted for almost 4.19 crore (4,19,30,129).

The number of attacks hosted by Indian servers were also limited at 17 lakh (17,40,327) incidents that were detected in the period between April-June 2021.

Dipesh Kaura, General Manager, Kaspersky (South Asia) commented, “The increase in the number of internet-borne threats targeted at Indian internet users is definitely a cause of serious concern. In just one year the cybercriminals became almost 8 times more active in targeting internet users in order to achieve great financial gains. Indian consumers are at an even greater risk due to the lack of cybersecurity awareness and cyber maturity amongst the growing number of Internet users.”