NAIROBI: Employees download new malware every four seconds, giving company ICT managers cause to worry.

Further, while most employees do not want to be the cause of a company network breach, one in five will cause one through either mobile malware or malicious wi-fi.

In reports released this week, cyber-security firm Check Point has revealed critical challenges and key recommendations for IT leaders as businesses build up protections against evolving cyber threats. The firm’s findings are contained in two documents: Security Report and Exploits at the Endpoint: SANS 2016 Threat Landscape Study.

In Security Report, researchers analysed the activities of more than 31,000 Check Point gateways worldwide to find out what enterprises are encountering in known and unknown malware and attack trends, and what the impact of more mobile devices in enterprises is.

They found that unknown malware had increased through employees who downloaded unknown malware every four seconds.

In total, there are nearly 12 million new malware variants discovered every month, with more new malware discovered in the past two years than in the previous decade. Further, security is lagging behind speedy, on-the-go mobile devices.

With smartphones and tablets accounting for 60 per cent of digital media time spent, businesses’ mobile devices present both an access curse and a business productivity blessing.

“With billions of new connections formed every minute, the world is more globally linked than ever. Innovations like cloud, mobility and IoT (Internet of Things) are changing the way we deploy, the way we consume and the way we secure technology,” said Rick Rogers, the area manager for East and West Africa at Check Point Software Technologies.

“More and more malware is being put into our ecosystem that traditional security techniques are powerless to prevent. Given this, staying a leader requires being one step ahead of things you cannot see, know or control – and preventing attacks before they happen.”

Among the businesses surveyed, endpoint devices – which include desktop computers, laptops, smartphones and tablets – were the most common causes of breaches, and the most critical component in cyber defence, with attackers targeting email in 75 per cent of cases.

Further, 39 per cent of endpoint attacks bypassed network gateway firewalls, with routine operations uncovering 85 per cent of threats after they were already inside the enterprise.

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