Bitdefender’s Threat Debrief report, which examined cyber attacks detected throughout December 2022, has revealed that Australia was no longer one of the top targets of ransomware hackers. 

The latest report detected ransomware from 147 countries in its dataset in December of last year, finding that it continues to be a threat that touches almost the entire world. However, the report’s latest results saw that Australia was not among the top countries being targeted by ransomware. 

Bitdefender’s last report showed Australia in the 8th spot. However, this latest report has the country and Romania removed from the list with China and France joining in. 

The data shows that the United States remain to be the most targeted country for ransomware. This reflects on the 2021 Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack that impacted its systems, as well as other ransomware attacks on both the country’s public and private sectors.

Check out: Global ransomware hackers ‘hacked’ by FBI 

Australia falling off Bitdefender’s Threat Debrief report on the top ten countries targeted by ransomware indicated that the federal government’s actions to further bolster the country’s cyber security is paying off.  

In October of last year, the federal government launched the new Ransomware Action Plan. The Plan introduced new criminal offences, tougher penalties and a mandatory reporting regime as a response to the 15% increase in reported ransomware attacks over the last year.   

Aside from this, the federal government also recently launched the International Counter Ransomware Task Force, hosting the world’s top cyber chiefs against recent high-profile cyber security attacks on critical global infrastructure.    

Check out: Australia leads international task force against ransomware 

Top 10 Ransomware Families 

Bitdefender’s report also analysed malware detections throughout December for ransomware families. Ransomware families are common code signatures, viral payloads, and malicious commands that cause damage to a business’s systems. 

 The report, which identified 207 ransomware families, listed the top 10 ransomware families for December. 

Android trojans 

The report also highlights the top 10 trojans that are targeting Android systems in December 2022. It was found that SMSSend.AYE, a trojan that tries to register as the default SMS application by requesting the consent of the user and collecting incoming and outgoing messages to forward them to a Command & Control (C&C) server, was the cause of several significant cyber security attacks. 

The trojan Downloader.DN, which repacks applications taken from Google App Store and bundles them with aggressive adware that downloads other malware variants, ranked second in the list of cyber security attacks towards Android systems. 

Bitdefender’s Homograph Phishing Report 

Homograph phishing attacks are based on the idea of using similar characters to pretend to be another site. Although most are easily recognizable, such as g00gle.com, homograph attacks based on international domain names (IDN) can be unrecognizable from the domains they are spoofing.   

The Threat Debrief Report lists the top 10 most common targets that threat actors are trying to impersonate. 

Homograph attacks, which work to abuse international domain names (IDN), are a dangerous and effective tool used for targeted campaigns. In another article, Bitdefender warns users to prevent the possibility of homograph attacks through user awareness training and implementing an endpoint security solution. 

Eliza Sayon

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Eliza is a content producer and editor at Public Spectrum. She is an experienced writer on topics related to the government and to the public, as well as stories that uplift and improve the community.

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