New analysis of DNS queries shows material growth in phishing, malware and botnets and offers insight into how many threats the average person experiences.
Most of the reports I cover use detection on an endpoint, a security solution, or the corporate network for their analysis, but the 2024 Annual Security Report from DNSFilter feels a bit more impartial because it uses DNS queries to determine whether whether malicious activity is occuring.
In their report, they site notable increases in DNS queries associated with specific aspects of cyber attacks:
- Phishing attacks rose by 106% when compared to the previous year
- Use of inks to malware rose by 40%
- Use of botnets rose by 32%
- And, as the title of the article indicates, use of day-old domains jumps 1250%
By categorizing domains and, therefore, DNS queries, it’s possible to figure out how many times a day an individual user is both encountering and interacting with a malicious email or webpage. According to the report, the number of 5 – 5 DNS queries known to be malicious are made on behalf of an individual user every day.
We can fool ourselves into thinking that security solutions are stopping attacks, but if DNSFilter is accurate, there are 5 bad links/emails/websites every one of your users is interacting with daily – a clear call to proactively educate them via security awareness training on the need to be vigilant when traversing the web or opening email.
KnowBe4 empowers your workforce to make smarter security decisions every day. Over 65,000 organizations worldwide trust the KnowBe4 platform to strengthen their security culture and reduce human risk.