Malware Statistics

In June 2025, BAUXITE deployed two custom wiper malware variants against Israeli targets.

41% of internal audit leaders are concerned about the use of AI to insert malicious code.

12% of organizations detected employee exposure to malware via GitHub each month in 2025.

In 2025, malicious attachments were present in 18% of phishing attacks.

89% of schools experienced at least one cyber incident in the past year, primarily phishing, unauthorized access, and malware.

27% of consumers have fallen victim to ad-related malware.

58% of consumers have encountered ad-related malware.

Malware email attacks surged by 131% year-over-year in 2025

Malware and ransomware accounted for 51% of all cyber insurance claims in 2024, up from 32% in 2023.

Adware accounted for 69% of mobile threat cases, overtaking the Joker malware family, which dropped to 23% of cases.

239 malicious applications were identified on the Google Play Store, collectively downloaded over 42 million times.

There was a 67% year-over-year increase in Android malware transactions.

Roughly 40% of blocked IoT transactions are linked to the Mirai malware family.

44% of Gen Z households reported malware infections.

44% of Gen Z parents report their child or family experiencing malware or a virus from downloads.

35% of companies have experienced autonomous and mutating malware attacks.

Vulnerability exploitation led to malware deployment as a follow-up activity in 68% of cases.

Email remained the top vector for delivering malware, accounting for 61% of threats caught by HP Sure Click in Q2 2025. This was a 1 percentage point drop compared to Q1 2025.

In Q2 2025, 13% of malicious emails (phishing, malware, etc.) were not blocked by the email gateway security system. This is 1 percentage point higher than in Q1 2025.

1 in 14 files, initially deemed 'safe' by legacy systems, were proven to be malicious

There has been a 127% rise in malware complexity.

81% of interactive (hands-on-keyboard) intrusions were malware-free.

Malware was identified as the second most trafficked threat category.

Subscription prices for generative AI tools like FraudGPT and WormGPT, marketed for illicit uses such as phishing and malware creation, start for as little as $200 per month.

20.3% of respondents view AI-powered malware as an extremely significant risk. This concern for AI-powered malware climbs to 25% among senior management, compared to just 15% of middle management.

The most common cybersecurity threats reported include malware (44%) and AI-powered exploits (28%).

77% of transportation and logistics organizations cited ransomware and malware threats as their top network security concern.

Malware remains the top attack type, holding this position since 2021.

Over 40% of malware detected in 2024 was newly observed.

Nearly half of the newly observed malware was classified as Remote Access Trojans (RATs).

Top concerns for CIOs regarding cybersecurity risk include: Malware and ransomware (42%), data breaches (37%), AI-driven attacks (34%), and phishing (33%).

FortiGuard Labs observed a 500% increase in the past year in logs available from systems compromised by infostealer malware.

"More than half" of the organizations surveyed confirmed they regularly experienced malware and phishing incidents.

Despite regularly experiencing malware and phishing incidents, 90% of respondents expressed confidence in their organizations' security measures.

"More than half" of the organizations surveyed confirmed they regularly experienced malware and phishing incidents.

The FBI received 441 complaints about malware in 2024 (versus 659 in 2023 and 762 in 2022).

The most common attack vectors cited were: Data breaches (30%), Malware on devices (29%), Cloud or SaaS breaches (28%), Phishing (28%), and Insider threats (28%).

Ransomware made up 28% of malware cases in 2024.

Ransomware comprises nearly one-third (28%) of malware incident response cases and 11% of security cases.

Of all the malware cases, 28% involved ransomware, followed by backdoors and webshells, at 20% and 13% respectively.