Digital threat management company, RiskIQ, inspected the expanding volume of malicious activity on the internet to reveal its ‘Evil Internet Minute’, because of cybercriminals costing the global economy £345billion last year.

The research found that in one ‘Evil Internet Minute’, cybercriminals deploy 181 pieces of malware, 1214 ransomware attacks occur, over 100,000 emails are phished, £656,393 is lost to cybercrime and 1,080 people fall victim.

Despite businesses’ efforts to protect against cyber threats, £109,942 is spent in a minute, whilst so called ‘bad actors’ continue to proliferate online.

The threats include malware and phishing, affecting large-scale reputational damage including monetary gain.

‘Framed malicious internet activity’

RiskIQ’s research uncovered additional malicious activity, ranging from blacklisted malvertising to mobile apps:

• New blacklisted mobile apps: 0.3 per minute
• New phishing pages: 100 per minute
• Malvertising: 14.5 incidents per minute
• Pirate content: 4,300 people globally exposed to malware from content theft sites per minute

Regional Vice President Sales at RiskIQ, Colin Verrall, said: “As the internet and its community continues to grow at pace, some people have been trying to make the vast numbers associated with it more accessible by framing them in the context of an ‘Evil Internet Minute’.

“As the same growth applies to cybercrime, similarly, we have framed malicious internet activity, leveraging the latest research as well as our own intelligence to define the darker happenings across the web in 60 seconds.”

Verrall also noted that websites, emails, mobile apps, online videos and digital advertisements are regular methods for malicious online activity.

Written by Leah Alger