In 2016, Trend Micro reported stopping a record-breaking 81,885,110,903 threats, which was a 56% increase over the previous year.
Of course, we all know what a number ransomware did to our networks this year. Trend Micro saw a 752% increase in new ransomware families alone—each with their own separate attack vectors and targets.
In terms of individual threats, SonicWall reports seeing a whopping 638 million ransomware attacks in 2016—which jumped from 3.8 million attacks the year before.
With Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) becoming increasingly more legitimate and cheap to deploy, we can expect these numbers to keep growing.
It's not just ransomware we have to be worried about. Trend Micro found that Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams were found in more than 90 countries and cost an average of $140,000 per attack.
BEC is just one method of social engineering, which 60% of organizations feel is one of the biggest threats we face today.
The FBI saw a 1,300% increase in fraud losses over a period of just two years, with law enforcement receiving 22,143 reports of BEC worldwide, costing organizations $3.1 billion.
Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative found 765 vulnerabilities in 2016, with Adobe Acrobat Reader DC and Advantech's WebAccess taking the top two spots.
WebAccess alone had 26 Zero-Days that researchers discovered. Even scarier, it's a program used in SCADA systems that could be used to cause power outages or shut down water supplies.
Apple products had a surprising number of vulnerabilities as well (81 found), with a 145% increase from 2015. However, Android vulnerabilities increased by 206%.
In the 2017 Security Predictions report, Trend Micro predicts "Adobe and Apple will outpace Microsoft in terms of platform vulnerability discoveries."
It's going to be just as important for these companies to stay on top of their security game, as for users to regularly update their software in order to ensure 2017 doesn't have another record-breaking year for cyber threats.