'Invisible' Cyberattacks Targeted Over 140 Firms Worldwide This Year

Kaspersky Lab experts discovered a series of “invisible” targeted cyberattacks against more than 140 enterprises around the world since the end of 2016, with most victims registered in the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia, according to the press release published on Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Kaspersky Lab experts tracked down the attacks at the end of 2016 after being contacted by one of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) banks, which had found penetration-testing software on their servers, according to the press release.

“Kaspersky Lab has since uncovered that these attacks are happening on a massive scale: hitting more than 140 enterprise networks in a range of business sectors, with most victims located in the USA, France, Ecuador, Kenya, the UK and Russia,” the press release read.

It added that cyberattacks had been registered in 40 countries in total.

“This combined approach helps to avoid detection by whitelisting technologies, and leaves forensic investigators with almost no artefacts or malware samples to work with. The attackers stay around just long enough to gather information before their traces are wiped from the system on the first reboot,” the press release read.

The ultimate goal of unknown attackers, who remain active, is access to companies' financial processes, according to Kaspersky Lab experts.