Trend Micro Inc., a global cybersecurity leader and staple in the Kanata North tech park, announced this week that its Smart Protection Network stopped 94.2 billion cyber-threats in 2021, projecting targeted threats will increase in 2022.
Detected by more than five trillion threat queries, the company’s threat intelligence infrastructure saw a 42 per cent increase in the number of threat detections recorded in 2020, surging to 53 billion attacks in the first half of 2021 alone.
However, 66 per cent less ransomware attacks were blocked by Trend Micro from 2020 to 2021, leading the company to conclude that cyber-threats are becoming more targeted. Security teams, said vice-president of threat intelligence Jon Clay, should prepare for a considerable onslaught of threats in 2022.
The increased number of detections is “a testament to our continuous effort to expand attack surface protections and improve our advanced detection technologies,” he said. “But it also underscores the mounting threat from bad actors, as outlined in our 2022 predictions report.”
Trend Micro predicts that IoT systems, global supply chains, cloud environments and DevOps functions will be significant targets for attackers over the coming year, meaning enhanced cyber security measures will be essential to curb cyber risks in 2022.
