In its Q2 Global Security Report, AppRiver, the global email security firm based in Gulf Breeze, noted that it had dealt with 4.2 billion malicious emails. 3.35 billion spam emails from April 1 to June 30, 2016.
“This is much higher traffic than we’re normally used to seeing,” said Jon French of AppRiver and one of the authors of the report. “A lot of times, we may see anywhere from 900 million in a really heavy quarter. Now we’re seeing double that in the first quarter and now four times as much here in the second quarter of 2016, so it’s really ramping up.”
French said a common virus is ransomware.
“Ransomware is scary for everybody regardless of what industry you’re in, or even how big your business is. This effects everybody down to just home users that just have pictures on their computer to global enterprises. Essentially it’s once you’re infected, the program takes your file, uses a really strong encryption for them, makes it so you can’t view them. They have the key to unlock it. You can now get all your files back for anywhere from about $200 to $1,000. They hold your own files ransom against you.”
