Malware infections here up 67%, mostly due to failure to patch vulnerable software

CSA report attributes surge in infected systems to a rise in infected botnet drones

- Lee Li Ying

The number of systems here infected by malware in 2024 leapt to 117,300—a 67 per cent spike from about 70,200 in 2023—with most incidents occurring because users failed to update vulnerable software.

Advanced persistent threat (APT) actors like state-sponsored hackers or large criminal organisations typically use these infected systems to conduct cyber attacks.

The ninth edition of the annual Singapore Cyber Landscape report, published on Sept 3 by the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA), attributed the surge of infected systems to a rise in infected botnet drones.

Botnet drones are computers, servers or Internet of Things devices that malware has taken over, allowing a botnet operator to control them remotely.

Threat actors could have accessed such devices by exploiting vulnerabilities in network edge devices like routers, web cameras or smart TVs.

CSA said its analysis revealed that most of the infections involved old malware strains with readily available remediation measures that had not been adopted.

"This underscored a troubling fact—that even as ransomware and other cyber threats grew, users were still failing to update and patch vulnerable software," said the agency.

Initiatives to address this gap include Singapore's participation in an international operation against a global botnet in September 2024 that disabled malware from 2,700 devices locally.

The CSA report also noted that APT activity has increased around the world, and in South-east Asia, such activity primarily targeted government and critical infrastructure for espionage purposes.