In 2016, the number of ransomware families increased from 29 to 247, representing a growth of 752 percent, according to a Trend Micro report.
The report, titled 2016 Security Roundup: A Record Year for Enterprise Threats, detailed cybersecurity incidents and trends over the previous year.
Here are three cyberthreats to look out for.
1. Ransomware. In 2016, cybercriminals used ransomware to extort roughly $1 billion from individuals and organizations across the globe. The most common infection vector for ransomware was spam.
2. Business email compromise. Organizations that were hit by a BEC scam lost an average of $140,000 per attack. The most targeted sector was healthcare, and the most heavily impacted countries were the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Japan and India.
3. Botnets. Botnets, or networks of malware-infected devices that are remotely controlled, are rising in popularity — in part because of the Internet of Things. The Mirai botnet, for example, brought down a denial-of-service attack on a number of servers in 2016 with its roughly 100,000 compromised IoT devices.
Click here to view the full report.