The Haunted House of Cyber Scares

Don't think supernatural baddies exist? You're about to be proved wrong. Vampires and witches pose some of the most dangerous cyber threats out there. In the spirit of Halloween, Trend Micro released an entertaining infographic that pairs some of the spookiest frights to their cyber counterparts.
The Villains of the NightEven though vampires are the big new heartthrobs, the only thing any sparkling Edward Cullen wants from you is cash from your online bank accounts. Trend Micro associated the bloodsucking fiend to online banking Trojans whose activity has increased by 30 percent from the first to second quarter of this year alone.
Ready to embrace the inner Rick Grimes in you? Zombies are everywhere on the Internet, controlled by botmasters who manipulate them to do their dirty work. These mind-controlled bots engage in an array of wicked acts including stealing information and using device resources. Approximately 30 million connections between bots and command and control servers occurred within the first half of this year.
Ghosts aren't just in scary movies like Paranormal Activity; these creepy spirits are targeted attacks that haunt your online movements as well. Cybercriminals creep around the network and are getting better at attacking individuals and companies undetected. On average, it takes 210 days for a breach to be detected, which is more than 35 days longer than in 2011.
It might a stretch, but sneaky, nocturnal bats embody the threat of mobile spyware. Like bats, remote hackers hide in the dark, using mobile spyware to hear and see what's near your mobile device. It took 18 years for PC malware threats to hit the one million mark, but less than five for mobile malware threats.
Witches can disguise themselves in a variety of forms; just look at the Evil Queen in Snow White for proof. Cybercriminals are the wicked witches of the web who change their malware using polymorphic scripts that automatically change codes for all victims. They use these scripts to target each victim by creating custom malware to take complete advantage of the system.
Battling the MonstersYou can arm yourself all you want with hexes, guns, and holy water but it takes more than garlic cloves and crosses to ward off these evil creatures. To keep yourself safe from cyber terrors, you should invest in comprehensive security solutions. There are multiple ways to arm yourself online. Password managers, like our Editors' Choices Last Pass 2.0 and Dashlane 2.0, generate strong, hard-to-crack passwords to help protect your personal data on websites. Antivirus software, such as Editors' Choice BitDefender Antivirus Plus (2014), is something everyone should have; it helps fortify your devices against malware threats. You have to get out the big guns to take on all these menacing monsters.
Click on the image below to view the full infographic.