Security company Damballa said it had recorded a 57 percent increase in Backoff Malware between August to September.
It compiles its reports from enterprise customers and global ISPs.
The biggest challenge for IT security teams is to find genuine attacks on networks from an avalanche of security alerts typically received.
During the third quarter of this year, Damballa noted the most affected enterprises received 138,000 events daily, up 32 percent from the second quarter. Enterprise customers said that’s an average of 37 infected devices per day.
But Damballa noted that Backoff, which is targeted POS (point of sales) malware infected 1,000 businesses. The type of enterprises that suffered showed the malware had managed to bypass network prevention controls and while active, was hidden in networks.
Brian Foster, the CTO of Damballa, struck a pessimistic note saying the figures show prevention controls can’t stop malware infections. “POS malware and other advanced threats can, and will, get through so we can’t completely build the walls around the network highter,” he said.
Enterprises need to look to build better better intelligence to idenify real threats. “We’d advise enterprises to be prepared, to get ahead by assuming they will be compromised, and take proactive measures,” he added.
