Bahrain Mirror: A report issued by Trend Micro, specialized in security software, revealed that the majority of the Middle Eastern countries, especially those in the GCC, are a hot target for cyber-attacks, adding that Ransomware remains a widespread threat in the country.

The recently issued report stated that the number of Ransomware detected in Bahrain accounted for 1.2 million.

ØUAE was the most country that was subjected to these kinds of attacks where the attacks accounted for 2.4 million of the 1.7 billion Ransomware attacks detected globally in Q1 of 2018.

The same trend was seen in Kuwait where 1.9 million of the worldwide threats were detected, while Oman accounted for 534,806 of the total Ransomware in the same period.

Meanwhile, the report said that the rapid pace of digitisation among the GCC naturally brings with it growing exposure to risks and vulnerabilities of cyber-attacks and Trend Micro cautions that data breaches and cybercrimes have the potential to derail the progress of these modernization initiatives.

In this context, Bahrain has announced a number of initiatives for technology-related projects, particularly financial technology that remains a controversial issue in the world, in the framework of attracting capitals to the country that suffers from economic hardship. The government has recently authorized for the first stock exchange in the Middle East that provides digital currency dealings such as "Bitcoin" and others.

"As GCC economies shift to digital, securing the cyberspace becomes all the more paramount as there is an increasing risk of calculated and premeditated cyber-attacks. What we are witnessing now in the Gulf is a long-term transformation and stakeholders ought to regard security as a key infrastructure necessary for a smart city to thrive," said Cherif Djerboua, Regional Tech Leader, Trend Micro AMEA.

The Japanese security vendor reported a spike in the number of malwares detected in the first quarter of the year. UAE had a total of 1.6 million malwares, while Kuwait had 465,058 infected files. Bahrain, meanwhile, had 202,241 malwares, with Oman coming in close with 161,055 malware threats.

Trend Micro added that an uptrend in online banking malware was reflected in the Trend Micro report with UAE getting 433; Kuwait, 90; Bahrain, 56; and Oman 46.

Macro malware figures during the same period are:  UAE - 263, Kuwait - 46, Bahrain - 45 and Oman - 7.

A worrying concern for Trend Micro is the increasing number of malicious URL victims. UAE registered close to a million with 988,264 URL victims; Kuwait had 224,916; while Bahrain and Oman have 26,860 and 83,388 detections respectively.

For malicious URLs detected in the GCC, Trend Micro got 5,314 in the UAE and 214 in Kuwait.  In Bahrain, the company detected 523 and for Oman, 37.

Arabic Version