EN

From January 2019 to April 2020

Malware
ENISA Threat Landscape
Overview

Malware is a common type of cyberattack in the form of malicious

software. Families of malware include cryptominers, viruses,
ransomware, worms and spyware. Its common objectives are
information or identity theft, espionage and service disruption.1

During 2019, cryptominers were one of the most prevalent malware

family in the threat landscape,2 resulting in high IT costs, increased
electricity consumption and reduced employee productivity.3
Ransomware presented a slight increase in 2019 compared with 2018,
though still remaining at the bottom of the malware type list.2

Web and e-mail protocols were the most common initial attack vectors
used to spread malware. However, using brute force techniques or
exploiting system vulnerabilities, certain malware families were able to
spread even further inside a network. Although global detections of
attacks have remained at the previous year’s levels, there was a
noticeable shift from consumer to business targets.4

2
__Findings

400.000_detections of pre-installed spyware

and adware on mobile devices 4

13%_increase in Windows malware detections

at business endpoints globally 4

71%_of organizations experienced malware

activity that spread from one employee to another 47

46,5%_of all malware in e-mail messages

found in ‘.docx’ file type 24

50%_increase in malware designed to steal

personal data or stalkerware 15

67%_of malware was delivered via encrypted

HTTPS connections 48

3
 Kill chain

Reconnaissance Weaponisation Delivery Exploitation

Step of Attack Workflow

Width of Purpose

4
 Malware

Command & Actions on

Installation Control Objectives

The Cyber Kill Chain® framework was developed by

Lockheed Martin, adapted from a military concept related
with the structure of an attack. To study a particular attack
vector, use this kill-chain diagram to map each step of the
process and reference the tools, techniques and
procedures used by the attacker.

MORE INFORMATION

5
Trends

_Most prevalent malware types

Emotet was the most prevalent malware strain in 2019 and is evolving in
2020. Emotet was initially discovered in 2014 as a banking trojan. Since
then, it has been upgraded with command and control (C2) functionality,
additional evasion mechanisms such as the ability to tell whether if it is
running in a sandbox environment and the ability to deliver dangerous
payloads, such as Trickbot and Ryuk.7 The figure above presents the
raking of baking malware detected in 2019.
During the reporting period, Emotet evolved into a botnet2, increased its
activity8 and initiated new localized spam campaigns with spear-phishing
functionality to install ransomware or steal information.5 During 2019,
Emotet detections increased by 73% compared with previous year,
mainly targeting business endpoints in the United States and the United
Kingdom as presented in the figure below.4

Unted States 71.58%

United Kingdom 23.63%
Germany 1.23%
Canada 1.02%
Mexico 0.96%
Argentina 0.45%
Australia 0.29%
Brazil 0.29%
Philippines 0.26%
4
Figure 1: 2019 global Emotet detections by country. Source MalwareBytes

6
_A shift towards business targets
Although malware detections globally remained at the same levels as in
20184,9, a 13% increase in malware targeting businesses was observed in
services, education and retail among the worst affected sectors.4 It is
estimated that over one third of banking malware attacks in 2019
targeted corporate users, with the intention of compromising the
company’s financial resources.10 The top five strains of malware4 targeting
businesses were Trojan.Emotet, Adware.InstallCore,
HackTool.WinActivator, Riskware.BitCoinMiner and Virus.Renamer.
Ransomware attacks targeting the public sector increased in 2019
because of its ability to pay higher ransoms.11 As Cybercriminals aim for
high-value targets, new malware types were designed to spread laterally
inside a corporate network rather than through the internet.12

6% 3% Other Trickbot
6% 25%

10% Ramnit Ursnif

DanaBot Dridex

19%
31% Qbot

2
Figure 2: Global banking malware detections in 2019. Source: CheckPoint

7
Trends

_ Malware-as-a-service (MaaS)
Malware-as-a-service (MaaS) refers to a specific malware sold in
underground forums which provides customers (cyber criminals) with the
tools and infrastructure needed for targeted attacks. A MaaS owner
provides this service through the delivery of a kit that includes an initial
loader, command and control Server (C2) and a backdoor for taking full
control of the infected computer.

A security researcher13 recently identified four type of attacks using

various tools from the Golden Chickens (GC) Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS)
portfolio, confirming the release of improved variants with code updates
to three of these tools.

 TerraLoader. A multipurpose loader written in PureBasic. TerraLoader

is a flagship product of GC MaaS service portfolio.

 more_eggs. A backdoor malware capable of beaconing to a fixed C2

server and executing additional payloads downloaded from an
external web resource. The backdoor is written in JavaScript.

 VenomLNK. A Windows shortcut file likely generated by a newer

version of the VenomKit building kit.

8
__Mobile banking malware
surged
Mobile applications designed to steal payment data, credentials
and funds from victims’ bank accounts increased by 50% in the
first half of 2019.14 Traditionally, threat actors have used phishing
techniques to gain bank credentials, either by displaying a fake
page that mimics the bank’s login page or by introducing fake
mobile apps that resemble the original banking apps. However,
in 2019, cybercriminals became more creative, as in the case of
Trojan-Banker.AndroidOS.Gustuff.a, which was able to control a
legitimate banking app by misusing the operating system’s
accessibility functions, thereby automating malicious
transactions.15 New versions of mobile financial malware were
commonly found for sale in underground forums15 and new
evasion techniques were continuously being developed. A
notable new addition discovered in 2019 was the ability of
malware to use motion sensors and be triggered only when a
smartphone is moving, as used by the mobile banking
trojanAnubis in an effort to detect a sandboxed environment.16
The most popular banking malware during 201911 was Asacub
(44,4%), Svpeng (22,4%), Agent (19,1%), Faketoken (12%) and
Hqwar (3,8%).

9
Trends

_File-less malware
Fileless malware does not contain an executable file and can evade
common security filters and whitelisting techniques. For this reason, this
malware family can be up to ten times more likely to succeed than the
others.18 Instead of an executable file, this type of malware requires the
attacker to inject malicious code into already installed and trusted
software, either remotely (e.g. in the case of Windows Management
Instrumentation or WMI and PowerShell) or by actively downloading
document files (i.e. office documents) containing malicious macros.19
After a successful attack, the malware can gain persistence through the
registry, built-in task scheduler or the WMI. Fileless malware attacks
increased by 265% during the first half of 2019.20 The majority of such
attacks were script-based (38%), while others executed an in-memory
attack (24%) or abused built-in system tools (20%).21

6% Script-based attack

In-memory attack
20%
38% WMI persistence

Task scheduler
1%
Windows registry
10% System built-in tool
1% Document exploit
24%

19
Figure 3: Percentage of file-less events detected in first half of 2019. Source: Norton

10
__How to prevent and defend
from a file-less attack?
The most effective way for organisations to defend against
fileless attacks is by keeping software up to date. Since most
fileless infections happen with Microsoft applications and
especially with ‘.docx’ files, it is particularly important to keep
updating this software to the latest version. Microsoft has also
upgraded its Windows Defender package to detect irregular
activity using the PowerShell application.
According to a security researcher18, the key to successfully
counteracting a fileless attack campaign is by dealing with each of
the phases of the threat’s life cycle with an integrated and multi-
layered defence approach. In this approach, it is important to
investigate the different stages of the attack and undertake the
following activities:
 analyse and measure the actions performed by the attacker;
 identify the techniques used;
 monitor activities in PowerShell or other scripting engines;
 Access aggregated threat data;
 control the state of the targeted system;
 halt arbitrary processes;
 remediate processes that are part of the attack;
 isolate infected devices.

11
Trends

_Botnet and Command and Control (C&C)

landscape
Overall global botnet traffic increased by 71,5% since 20182. The botnets
most often observed were Emotet (41%), Trickbot (25%) and DanaBot
(5%)2. A notable increase in botnet traffic was observed in Russia (143%),
attributed mostly to relaxed registration procedures and less interest
from law enforcement agencies.14 During 2019, Russia hosted most botnet
C2s, followed by the United States, the Netherlands, China and France.
Domain name generation algorithms (DGAs) were used by cybercriminals
to support many C2 communication. 50% of these registrations occurred
in top-level domains (TLDs) ‘.com’ and ‘.net’.15 During the reporting period,
such domain name registrations dropped by 71%, in favour of other
communication protocols such as peer-to-peer (P2P).13

AgentTesla 10%

Lokibot 10%

Trickbot 11%

Coinhive 12%

Cryptoloot 14%

XMRig 14%

Jsecoin 15%

Emotet 18%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20%

Figure 4: Malware types identified in 2019. Source: MalwareBytes4

12
_How
According to a study from 2019, 94% of all malware types were delivered
via e-mail.24 Although this is counted as an entry point vector, it is
interesting to note that, upon successful attack, the malware might
download an additional payload that exhibits worm-like behaviour to
allow laterally spread across the network (Emotet and Trickbot). Moreover,
after the initial delivery of malware, in most cases (71%) it was spreading
by employees’ activity. Once again, new vulnerabilities in the remote
desktop protocol (RDP) attracted attention, as they allow remote code
execution (RCE) and are therefore wormable.30 Although these newly
discovered vulnerabilities have not been exploited on a large scale, it is
expected that a new worm may target unpatched systems in the near
future.31

_Incidents
 Airbus suffered a data breach affecting employees in
Europe.34, 35
 Card skimming malware installed on the American Medical
Collection Agency’s web site resulted in the theft of 12 million
patients’ personal data.36
 Major provider of laboratory diagnostics LifeLabs fell victim to
a ransomware attack, resulting in the theft of 15 million
accounts containing the test results and health card
numbers.37,38
 A ransomware attack on the City of Pensacola, Florida
resulted in 2GB of data being made available online, possibly
containing personally identifiable information (PII).39
 The personal data of 2.400 Singapore armed forces staff
may have been leaked through e-mail phishing by malicious
malware.40

13
Mitigation

_Proposed actions
 Implement malware detection for all inbound/outbound channels,
including email, network, web and application systems in all
applicable platforms (i.e. servers, network infrastructure, personal
computers and mobile devices).
 Inspect the SSL/TLS traffic allowing the firewall to decrypt what is
being transmitted to and from websites, email communications, and
mobile applications.
 Establish interfaces between malware detection functions
(intelligence-led threat hunting) and security incident management to
establish efficient response capabilities.
 Use the tools available for malware analysis for sharing malware
information and malware mitigation (i.e. MISP).32
 Develop security policies that specify the processes to be followed in
the event of infection.
 Understand the capabilities of various security tools and develop new
security solutions. Identify gaps and apply the defence-in-depth
principle.
 Employ mail filtering (or spam filtering) for malicious e-mails and
remove executable attachments.
 Regularly monitor the results of antivirus tests.30,42
 Log monitoring using security incident and event management (SIEM)
solution. Indicative log sources are anti-virus alerts, endpoint
detection and response (EDR), proxy server logs, Windows Event and
Sysmon43 logs, intrusion detection system (IDS) logs44, etc.
 Disable or reduce access to PowerShell functions.45

14
“The sophistication
of threat capabilities
increased in 2019,
with many
adversaries using
exploits, credential
stealing and multi-
stage attacks.”
in ETL 2020

15
References
1. “What is Malware”. Veracode. https://www.veracode.com/security/malware
2. “Cyber Security Report”. 2019. Checkpoint.
https://www.checkpoint.com/downloads/resources/cyber-security-report-2020.pdf
3. “Beapy: Cryptojacking Worm Hits Enterprises in China” April 24, 2019. Broadcom.
https://symantec-enterprise-blogs.security.com/blogs/threat-intelligence/beapy-cryptojacking-
worm-china
4. “2020 State of Malware Report”. February, 2020. Malware Bytes.
https://resources.malwarebytes.com/files/2020/02/2020_State-of-Malware-Report.pdf
5. “Evasive Threats,Pervasive Effects” 2019. Trend Micro, Research.
https://documents.trendmicro.com/assets/rpt/rpt-evasive-threats-pervasive-effects.pdf
6. “SonicWall Cyber Threat Report”. 2020. SonicWall. https://www.sonicwall.com/resources/2020-
cyber-threat-report-pdf/
7. “Emotet is back: botnet springs back to life with new spam campaign”. September 16, 2019.
Malwarebytes Labs. https://blog.malwarebytes.com/botnets/2019/09/emotet-is-back-botnet-
springs-back-to-life-with-new-spam-campaign/
8. “Increased Emotet Malware Activity” January 22, 2020. US CERT. https://www.us-
cert.gov/ncas/current-activity/2020/01/22/increased-emotet-malware-activity
9. “SonicWall Security Metrics” SonicWall. https://securitycenter.sonicwall.com/m/page/capture-
labs-threat-metrics
10. “Over a third of banking malware attacks in 2019 targeted corporate users – demonstrating
the need for protection”. April 16, 2019. Kaspersky. https://www.kaspersky.com/about/press-
releases/2020_over-a-third-of-banking-malware-attacks-in-2019-targeted-corporate-users-
demonstrating-the-need-for-protection
11. “Internet organised crime threat assessment” 2019. EUROPOL (EC3).
https://www.europol.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/iocta_2019.pdf
12. “Narrowed Sights, Bigger Payoffs: Ransomware in 2019” June 6, 2019. Trend Micro.
https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/hk-en/security/news/cybercrime-and-digital-
threats/narrowed-sights-bigger-payoffs-ransomware-in-2019
13. “GOLDEN CHICKENS: Evolution of the MaaS”. July 20, 2020. QuoIntelligence.
https://quointelligence.eu/2020/07/golden-chickens-evolution-of-the-maas/
14. “From Supply Chain to Email, Mobile and the Cloud” July 25, 2019. CheckPoint.
https://www.checkpoint.com/press/2019/check-point-research-from-supply-chain-to-email-
mobile-and-the-cloud-no-environment-is-immune-to-cyber-attacks/
15. “Mobile malware evolution 2019”. February 25, 2020. Kaspersky.
https://securelist.com/mobile-malware-evolution-2019/96280/
16. “Google Play Apps Drop Anubis Banking Malware, Use Motion-based Evasion Tactics”. January
17, 2019. Trend Micro. https://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/google-play-
apps-drop-anubis-banking-malware-use-motion-based-evasion-tactics/
17. “Spamhaus Botnet Threat Report 2019”. January 28, 2020. Spamhaus.
https://www.spamhaus.org/news/article/793/spamhaus-botnet-threat-report-2019
18. “What Is Fileless Malware?”. McAfee. https://www.mcafee.com/enterprise/en-us/security-
awareness/ransomware/what-is-fileless-malware.html
19. “What is fileless malware and how does it work?” . Norton.
https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-malware-what-is-fileless-malware.html
20. “Trend Micro Report Reveals 265% Growth In Fileless Events”. August 28, 2019. Trend Micro.
https://www.trendmicro.com/en_hk/about/newsroom/press-releases/2019/2019-08-28.html
21. “Understanding Fileless Threats” July 29, 2019. Trend Micro.
https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/us/security/news/security-technology/risks-under-the-radar-
understanding-fileless-threats

16
22. “SonicWall Sees Dramatic Jump In IoT Malware, Encrypted Threats, Web App Attacks Through
Third Quarter”. October 22, 2019. SonicWall. https://www.sonicwall.com/news/dramatic-jump-in-
iot-malware-encrypted-threats-web-app-attacks-third-quarter/
23. “2020 Vulnerability and Threat Trends”. 2020. SKYBOX. https://lp.skyboxsecurity.com/rs/440-
MPQ-510/images/2020_VT_Trends-Report-reduced.pdf
24. “Over a third of banking malware attacks in 2019 targeted corporate users – demonstrating
the need for protection”. April 16, 2019. Kaspersky. https://www.kaspersky.com/about/press-
releases/2020_over-a-third-of-banking-malware-attacks-in-2019-targeted-corporate-users-
demonstrating-the-need-for-protection
25. “Internet organised crime threat assessment” 2019. EUROPOL (EC3).
https://www.europol.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/iocta_2019.pdf
26. “Narrowed Sights, Bigger Payoffs: Ransomware in 2019” June 6, 2019. Trend Micro.
https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/hk-en/security/news/cybercrime-and-digital-
threats/narrowed-sights-bigger-payoffs-ransomware-in-2019
27. “From Supply Chain to Email, Mobile and the Cloud” July 25, 2019. CheckPoint.
https://www.checkpoint.com/press/2019/check-point-research-from-supply-chain-to-email-
mobile-and-the-cloud-no-environment-is-immune-to-cyber-attacks/
28. “Mobile malware evolution 2019”. February 25, 2020. Kaspersky.
https://securelist.com/mobile-malware-evolution-2019/96280/
29. “Mobile banking malware surges in 2019”. July 25, 2019. Computer Weekly.
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252467340/Mobile-banking-malware-surges-in-2019
30. “Google Play Apps Drop Anubis Banking Malware, Use Motion-based Evasion Tactics”. January
17, 2019. Trend Micro. https://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/google-play-
apps-drop-anubis-banking-malware-use-motion-based-evasion-tactics/
31. “BlueKeep attacks are happening, but it's not a worm”. November 3, 2019. ZDNet.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/bluekeep-attacks-are-happening-but-its-not-a-worm/
32. MISP Projects. http://www.misp-project.org/
33. “PowerShell, fileless malware’s great attack vector” . February 25, 2919. Panda.
https://www.pandasecurity.com/mediacenter/malware/powershell-fileless-malware-attack-
vector/
34. “Airbus Statement on Cyber Incident”. January 30, 2019. Airbus.
https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2019/01/airbus-statement-on-cyber-
incident.html
35. “Airbus data breach impacts employees in Europe” January 30, 2019. ZDNet.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/airbus-data-breach-impacts-employees-in-europe/
36. “Massive Quest Diagnostics data breach impacts 12 million patients”. June 4, 2019. ZDNet.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/massive-quest-diagnostics-data-breach-impacts-12-million-
patients/
37. “Hackers crack 15M LifeLabs accounts, obtain lab results and health card numbers”.
December 17, 2019. Daily Hive. https://dailyhive.com/calgary/lifelabs-hacked-cyber-attack
38. “Why the LifeLabs Hack Likely Is Worse than Most”. December 18, 2019. The Tyee.
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/12/18/LifeLabs-Data-Hack/
39. “Personal Information in City of Pensacola Cyberattack”. January 17, 2020. City of Pensacola.
https://www.cityofpensacola.com/CivicSend/ViewMessage/Message/100944
40. “Personal data of 2,400 Mindef, SAF staff may have been leaked” December 22, 2019. The
Straits Times - Singapore. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/personal-data-of-2400-
mindef-saf-staff-may-have-been-leaked

17
References
41. AVTEST – The Independent IT-Security Institute. https://www.av-test.org/en/
42. “Real world protection tests.” AV Comparatives. https://www.av-comparatives.org/dynamic-
tests/
43. “The ThreatHunting Project.” https://www.threathunting.net/data-index
44. Mark Russinovich, Thomas Garnier . “Sysmon v11.10.” June 24, 2020. Microsoft.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/sysmon
45. “Guide to Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDPS).” February 2007. CSRC.
https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-94/final

47. “Most malware in Q1 2020 was delivered via encrypted HTTPS connections”. June 25. 2020.
Help Net Security. https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2020/06/25/encrypted-malware/

48. “Malware statistics and facts for 2020” July 29, 2020. Comparitech.
https://www.comparitech.com/antivirus/malware-statistics-facts/

18
“The threat landscape
is becoming extremely
difficult to map. Not
only attackers are
developing new
techniques to evade
security systems, but
threats are growing in
complexity and
precision in targeted
attacks.”
in ETL 2020

19
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20
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21
About

_ The agency
The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, ENISA, is the Union’s
agency dedicated to achieving a high common level of cybersecurity
across Europe. Established in 2004 and strengthened by the EU
Cybersecurity Act, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity
contributes to EU cyber policy, enhances the trustworthiness of ICT
products, services and processes with cybersecurity certification schemes,
cooperates with Member States and EU bodies, and helps Europe prepare
for the cyber challenges of tomorrow. Through knowledge sharing,
capacity building and awareness raising, the Agency works together with
its key stakeholders to strengthen trust in the connected economy, to
boost resilience of the Union’s infrastructure, and, ultimately, to keep
Europe’s society and citizens digitally secure. More information about
ENISA and its work can be found at www.enisa.europa.eu.

Contributors
Christos Douligeris, Omid Raghimi, Marco Barros Lourenço (ENISA), Louis
Marinos (ENISA) and all members of the ENISA CTI Stakeholders Group:
Andreas Sfakianakis, Christian Doerr, Jart Armin, Marco Riccardi, Mees
Wim, Neil Thaker, Pasquale Stirparo, Paul Samwel, Pierluigi Paganini, Shin
Adachi, Stavros Lingris (CERT EU) and Thomas Hemker.
Editors
Marco Barros Lourenço (ENISA) and Louis Marinos (ENISA).
Contact
For queries on this paper, please use
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For media enquiries about this paper, please use press@enisa.europa.eu.

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Legal notice
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© European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), 2020
Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.
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ISBN: 978-92-9204-354-4
DOI: 10.2824/552242

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23
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