In 2023, the worldwide number of malware attacks reached 6.06 billion, an increase of 10 percent compared to the preceding year. In recent years, the highest number of malware attacks was detected in 2018, when 10.5 billion such attacks were reported across the globe.Â
Malware attacks worldwide
In 2022, worm malware was blocked over 205 million times. Another common malware type during that period, Emotet, primarily targeted the Asia-Pacific region. Overall, websites are the most common vector for malware attacks and recent industry data found that malware attacks were frequently received via exe files.
Most targeted industries
In 2022, the education sector was heavily targeted by malware, encountering 2,314 weekly attacks on average. Government and military organizations ranked second, followed by the healthcare units. Overall, in 2022, the education sector saw over five million malware attacks in the examined year.