While increased volatility and rising mining difficulties have deterred
crypto-mining attacks, users in India and Sri Lanka face a relatively
higher chance of encountering one, according to Microsoft’s recent cybersecurity report for countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
Mining
attacks infect a user’s computer with crypto-mining malware that allows
the hacker to utilize someone else’s computing power to mine cryptos
without their knowledge.
- The report notes
India’s encounter rate for such attacks is 4.6 times higher than the
global and regional average. The crypto-hack encounter rate for India in
2019 was 0.23%, a decline of over 50% since 2018. - Users in Sri Lanka and Vietnam also face a high incidence of such attacks.
- In
addition to crypto-hacking, malware, ransomware and drive-by download
attacks pose big cybersecurity challenges in India, according to the
report. - Although the report states that drive-by download
attacks have dipped overall in the region, India registered a rise of
140% in such attacks. These involve the unintentional download of
malicious software when users visit a website or use an app and can be
used to extract intellectual property or financial information.
Singapore, India and Hong Kong are three countries that face the highest
incidence of such attacks. - The security report compiled by
Microsoft, using data from January to December 2019, also states that
about 6% of Indian users encountered malware attacks over the last year.
- The Asia-Pacific region also has a higher than average malware
and ransomware encounter rate – 1.6 and 1.7 times higher than global
averages respectively, according to the report. source link : https://www.coindesk.com/indian-users-almost-five-times-more-likely-to-encounter-crypto-hacking-report
