.pk domain in Pakistan: Number of compromised accounts reaches nearly 2.4m

ISLAMABAD: The number of compromised accounts of .pk domain in Pakistan has reached nearly 2.4 million. This has been revealed by Kaspersky Digital Footprint Intelligence on Wednesday.

According to Kaspersky’s data issued on Wednesday, nearly 10 million devices fell victim to data-stealing malware in 2023.

Hafeez Rahman, Technical group manager at Kaspersky said that the 443,000 websites worldwide have experienced compromised credentials in the past 5 years. The .com domain leads in compromised accounts with nearly 326 million logins and passwords for websites on this domain were compromised by info stealers in 2023.

Latest reports on data stealing shows 643% increase over the past three years. The actual number of infections is likely to be even higher than 10 million. According to Kaspersky's assessment of info stealer log-file dynamics, the number of infections that occurred in 2023 is projected to reach roughly 16,000,000.

With cyber criminals pilfering an average of 50.9 login credentials per infected device, the threat posed by data-stealers is growing for both consumers and businesses. In light of this growing threat, Kaspersky has launched a dedicated web page to raise awareness of the issue and provide strategies for mitigating associated risks.

Threat actors either utilize these credentials for their own malicious purposes, including perpetrating cyber attacks, or sell or distribute them freely on dark web forums and shadow Telegram channels. These credentials may encompass logins for social media, online banking services, crypto wallets, and various corporate online services, such as email and internal systems.

Leaked credentials carry a major threat, enabling cyber criminals to execute various attacks such as unauthorized access for theft, social engineering, or impersonation,” Hafeez stated.

To guard against data-stealing malware, individuals are advised to use a comprehensive security solution for any device. Companies can help their users, employees and partners protect themselves from the threat this way. They can proactively monitor leaks and prompt users to change leaked passwords immediately, Hafeez added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024