Symantec discovered more than 430 million new unique pieces of malware in 2015, up 36 percent from the year before. Perhaps what is most remarkable is that these numbers no longer surprise us. As real life and online become indistinguishable from each other, cybercrime has become a part of our daily lives. Attacks against businesses and nations hit the headlines with such regularity that we’ve become numb to the sheer volume and acceleration of cyber threats.
Most threat reports only scratch the surface of the threat landscape, whereas the breadth of Symantec’s data enables the Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR) to examine multiple facets, including targeted attacks, smartphone threats, social media scams, and Internet of Things (IoT) vulnerabilities, as well as attackers’ tactics, motivations, and behaviors. While there is much to be learned from this comprehensive view into the threat landscape, the following are six key findings and trends from 2015.