'Malware & ransomware top cyber threats in India'

NEW DELHI: India experienced a higher encounter rate for malware and ransomware attacks than the regional average in Asia Pacific last year, according to the latest edition of Microsoft's Security Endpoint Threat Report. India registered the seventh highest malware encounter rate across the region, at 5.89 per cent in the past year, showed the India findings of the report released on Wednesday.

This was 1.1 times higher than the regional average.

The report also found that India recorded the third highest ransomware encounter rate across the region, which was two times higher than the regional average.

This was despite a 35 per cent and 29 per cent decrease in malware and ransomware encounters respectively over the past year.

"Typically, high malware encounters are a result of excessive usage of unlicensed and/or pirated software, and proliferation of sites that illegitimately offer free software or content, such as video streaming," Keshav Dhakad, Group Head & Assistant General Counsel — Corporate, External & Legal Affairs, Microsoft India, said in a statement.

"Consumer education is important — users should regularly patch and update programmes and devices and be able to identify unsafe websites and illegitimate software." (IANS)

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