PDF: The vehicle of choice for malware and fraud

From helpnetsecurity.com

fraudulent PDF files increase

There has been a substantial increase of fraudulent PDF files, according to a report by SonicWall Capture Labs threat researchers.

This fraud campaign takes advantage of recipients’ trust in PDF files as a “safe” file format that is widely used and relied upon for business operations.

“Increasingly, email, Office documents and now PDFs are the vehicle of choice for malware and fraud in the cyber landscape,” said SonicWall President and CEO Bill Conner.

“In all of last year, our Capture ATP sandbox discovered more than 47,000 new attack variants in PDF files. This year, we’ve already seen that number rise significantly with over 73,000 PDF-based attacks discovered in March alone.”

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