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Latest SonicWall Threat Report Uncovers Seismic Shift in Cyber Arms Race Due to Geopolitical Unrest as Cyberattacks Climb

  • 2.8 billion malware attacks (+11%) recorded in the first half of 2022 — first escalation of global malware volume in more than three years
  • While ransomware volume shrunk 23% worldwide, Europe saw 63% increase
  • Even in decline, year-to-date ransomware volume exceeded full-year totals of 2017, 2018 and 2019
  • Financial sector saw cyberattacks climb drastically: malware up 100%, a 243% spike in ransomware, and a 269% increase in cryptojacking attempts
  • 45% increase in ‘never-before-seen’ malware variants, up 21x since SonicWall began tracking in 2018
  • Encrypted threats, IoT malware increased 132% and 77% year-over-year, respectively


SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 27 July 2022 – SonicWall, publisher of the world’s most quoted ransomware threat intelligence, today released the mid-year update to the 2022 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report. The newest report, researched and compiled by SonicWall Capture Labs, unveils an 11% increase in global malware, a 77% spike in IoT malware, a 132% rise in encrypted threats and a geographically-driven shift in ransomware volume as geopolitical strife impacts cybercriminal activity.

“In the cyber arms race, cybersecurity and geopolitics have always been inseparably linked, and in the last six months we have seen that play out across the cyber landscape,” said SonicWall President and CEO Bill Conner. “The cyber warfare battlefront has shifted, as our data indicates a 63% rise in ransomware in Europe and a concerted effort to target financial sector companies, while ransomware volume dropped in other regions. With major increases in encrypted threats, IoT malware, cryptojacking and new unknown variants, it’s critical that cybersecurity leaders have all the required tools and technology to proactively detect and remediate against increasingly sophisticated and targeted threats to their business.”

Ransomware Attacks in Europe Swell as Threat Landscape Shifts

After a record-breaking 2021, overall ransomware attacks have trended down in the first half of 2022, decreasing globally for the fourth consecutive quarter. Government sanctions, supply chain deficiencies, dropping cryptocurrency prices and limited availability of needed infrastructure are all making it more difficult for cybercriminals. Proprietary SonicWall threat intelligence reinforces that analysis, as June 2022 saw the lowest monthly ransomware volume in two years, which helped drive down overall global volume.

“As bad actors diversify their tactics, and look to expand their attack vectors, we expect global ransomware volume to climb — not only in the next six months, but in the years to come,” said Conner. “With so much turmoil in the geopolitical landscape, cybercrime is increasingly becoming more sophisticated and varying in the threats, tools, targets and locations.”

Commenting on the recent shift within the cybersecurity landscape in the last six months, Debasish Mukherjee, Vice President, Regional Sales, Asia Pacific Japan at SonicWall said, “It is indeed alarming to witness such a dramatic shift within a short span of time, attributed to the growing political unrest in the region. In APJ, there has been surmounting evidence and data that have pointed towards a concerted effort by cybercriminals across ransomware, encrypted threats, IOT malware, as well as new unknown variants. These attacks continue to remain a big problem – which is why our levels of resiliency and priorities will have to be consistently reinforced, with the mindset that cybersecurity is not only a good idea – but a necessary one for businesses of all sizes.”

While global ransomware dipped to start the year, Europe saw significant increases in malware attacks (+29% year-over-year) and ransomware attempts (+63%). In terms of volume, seven of the top 11 countries targeted by ransomware were in Europe (United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Ukraine), suggesting a cyber threat climate shift for the region.

Malware Rebounds with 11% Global Spike

In 2021, malware volume was slightly down, marking a third-straight year of decrease as well as a seven-year low. However, as predicted in the 2022 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report, a rebound was anticipated, due to a significant uptick in attacks during the second half of 2021. That rebound was felt as more than 2.8 billion malware attacks occurred within the first six months of 2022. In North America, encrypted threats were up an astounding 284% and IoT malware soared 228% within that same time frame.

Similar to shifting ransomware numbers, malware volume was level or dropped in typical hot spots like the United States (-1%), United Kingdom (-9%) and Germany (-13%), while rising collectively in Europe (29%) and Asia (32%).

“The international threat landscape is now seeing an active migration that is profoundly changing the challenges not only in Europe, but the United States as well,” said SonicWall expert on emerging threats Immanuel Chavoya. “Cybercriminals are working harder than ever to be ahead of the cybersecurity industry, and unlike many of the businesses they target, threat actors often have no shortage of skills, motivation, expertise and funding within their organizations.”

The financial sector combatted a 100% increase in malware attacks, a 243% hike in ransomware attempts and a staggering 269% in cryptojacking attempts.

Record Number of ‘Never-before-seen’ Malware Variants Discovered

SonicWall’s patented Real-Time Deep Memory InspectionTM (RTDMI) technology identified 270,228 never-before-seen malware variants during the first half of 2022 — a 45% increase year-to-date. The first quarter of 2022 marked a record-high in never-before-seen malware discoveries (147,851), with March 2022 being the most ever on record (59,259).

Since the introduction of RTDMI in early 2018, new variants discovered have skyrocketed 21x through June 2022. These are new and previously unknown cyberattacks that are going undetected by traditional sandbox approaches.

To explore the complete mid-year update to the 2022 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report, please visit sonicwall.com/ThreatReport.

Hashtag: #SonicWall

About SonicWall

SonicWall delivers Boundless Cybersecurity for the hyper-distributed era in a work reality where everyone is remote, mobile and unsecure. SonicWall safeguards organizations mobilizing for their new business normal with seamless protection that stops the most evasive cyberattacks across boundless exposure points and increasingly remote, mobile and cloud-enabled workforces. By knowing the unknown, providing real-time visibility and enabling breakthrough economics, SonicWall closes the cybersecurity business gap for enterprises, governments and SMBs worldwide. For more information, visit or follow us on , , and .

United States Grants USD 8.5 million for UXO Operations in Northern Laos

MAG Technicians working in Xieng Khouang province(Photo: MAG/Bart Verweij)

The United States has granted 12 months of additional funding totaling USD 8.5 million to MAG in order to continue the implementation of UXO clearance, survey, and explosive ordnance risk education across Xieng Khouang Province.

MDRT Celebrates In-Person Global Membership Reunion at 2022 Annual Meeting and Global Conference

Members of The Premier Association of Financial Professionals® tap into post-pandemic strategies and experience next-level connectivity to learn, share and grow.

PARK RIDGE, Ill. – Media OutReach – 27 July 2022 – The incomparable experience of in-person MDRT member gatherings for leading financial services professionals have returned after two years of virtual meetings, with the MDRT 2022 Annual Meeting in Boston, USA, from June 26-29, and the MDRT 2022 Global Conference in Sydney, Australia, from August 28-31.

MDRT 2022 Annual Meeting Recap

The four-day Annual Meeting in Boston, USA offered more than 170 sessions, featuring motivational Main Platform speakers, thought-provoking Focus Sessions and immersive ConneXion Zone sessions. With the opportunity to network with MDRT’s global, dynamic community of thought leaders, attendees cultivated meaningful relationships and learned tailored strategies for navigating a post-pandemic world – no matter their career stage. In celebration of MDRT’s continued global expansion, MDRT First Vice President Peggy Tsai gave her Main Platform presentation in her native language of Mandarin.

The Annual Meeting featured a total of 172 sessions, including 9 sessions presented by our local Singaporean MDRT members. Some topics covered include ‘Harnessing the infinite power of social media’ by Candice Ong and ‘Building a record-breaking team while achieving Top of the Table’ by Chee Keng Lian in Mandarin.

“I am honored to be given the opportunity to share my experiences as a financial consultant, especially on such a global scale. I hope that Singapore’s financial planning profession will continue to prosper and that more of us will have the opportunity to bring our achievements to a larger stage.” added Joyce Chan, one of the Singaporean MDRT members.

The event also offered inspiration from exciting Main Platform speakers, such as Broadway star Alton Fitzgerald White and Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes. Attendees also heard distinguished MDRT members share the proven strategies used to elevate their practice during MDRT Speaks, Focus Sessions and ConneXion Zone sessions. Main Platform content was available via livestream for those who could not attend in person.

“After attending more than 30 MDRT Annual Meetings in person before the pandemic, I’m thrilled we were able to safely gather once again. To have the opportunity to celebrate, learn, and grow together is incomparable,” said MDRT President Randy Scritchfield, CFP, LUTCF. “Experiencing again the comradery of the shared learning environment and the innovative strategies that empower us to continue striving for the next level of success is an unforgettable event.”

Upcoming MDRT 2022 Global Conference

Following the Annual Meeting, MDRT will host its Global Conference in Sydney, Australia between August 28 and 31, 2022. The MDRT Global Conference will be an in-person event with some sessions available through online streaming. Pre-registration is open until August 16, 2022.

Over 120 sessions, including 6 sessions presented by Singaporean MDRT members, are planned. The sessions will feature a diverse range of speakers from well-known experts to MDRT members. Attendees will hear distinguished MDRT members share the proven strategies used to elevate their practice during MDRT Speaks. And for deeper-dives on post-pandemic business strategies and navigating current-day challenges, attendees can choose from a variety of Focus and ConneXion Zone sessions, such as:

‘Importance of follow-ups for case closure’ by Yismin Lim

As everyone continues to move toward a digital working environment, Lim addresses the importance of conducting proper follow-ups during the planning process when face-to-face meetings are not possible.

‘A presentation to close multiple cases’ by Fuji Yeo

Yeo provides a simple yet engaging approach to a presentation style that is sure to help close multiple sales through effective fact-finding.

Program viewing will be available in several time zones and only accessible during the designated dates and times. Additionally, the meeting will offer in-language, region-specific sessions and a multi-language Main Platform for its diverse global membership.

For Court of the Table and Top of the Table members, an exclusive session, focused on reaching next-level success and performing under pressure, will also be available.

Reflecting the caring, charitable spirit of its global membership, this year’s MDRT Foundation Partner for the Annual Meeting and Global Conference, Liter of Light, is from the Philippines. Both gatherings feature a presentation from founders Ami Valdemoro and Illac Diaz, on how the organization uses recycled plastic bottles to bring electricity to 32 countries, providing residents lighter, safer and more enriched lives.

“Regardless of where members are from or where they are in their careers, MDRT continues to be an excellent conduit, allowing for rich connections, shared strategies, and enhanced personal and professional growth,” said MDRT Second Vice President Greg Gagne, ChFC. “As we approach a post-pandemic world, it’s more important than ever to continue evolving and adapting, and we do that by tapping into our fellow MDRT peers, around the globe.”

Interested members can register for the Global Conference here: Home 2022 (mdrt.org)

Hashtag: #MDRT

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About MDRT

MDRT, The Premier Association of Financial Professionals®, is a global, independent association of the world’s leading life insurance and financial services professionals from more than 500 companies in 70 nations and territories. MDRT members demonstrate exceptional professional knowledge, strict ethical conduct and outstanding client service. MDRT membership is recognized internationally as the standard of excellence in the life insurance and financial services business. For more information, please visit and follow them on Twitter .

Hytera Facilitates the Smooth Running of the 40th Hong Kong Film Awards

HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 27 July 2022 – The 40th Hong Kong Film Awards ceremony, held at the Kowloon Bay International Exhibition and Trade Center, concluded successfully on July 17. Partnering with its Hong Kong distributor Unicom Technology (HK) Limited, Hytera provided the event management team with a comprehensive communications solution consisting of Push-to-Talk over Cellular (PoC) radios and digital portable radios.

Caption
The event coordinator communicates with the rest of the team via Hytera PNC378

The Hong Kong Film Awards has been adopting Hytera communications solutions since 2014. This year, as the layout of the venue was quite different from the previous ones, the on-site communications system needs to be capable of providing communication coverage that allows the staff working at the basement parking lot to coordinate seamlessly with the other staff serving the guests at the venue located at the upper storeys. This requirement is an addition to the standard communication needs of the reception, backstage and the actual venue. Featuring a wide-area network coverage, the Hytera PoC solution fits just the purpose. Together, the Hytera PNC378 PoC radios and PD708 digital portable radios offer a comprehensive and complete communications system that secured uninterrupted connectivity and communications.

Hashtag: #Hytera

About Hytera

Hytera Communications Corporation Limited (SZSE: 002583) is a leading global provider of professional communications technologies and solutions. With voice, video and data capabilities, we provide faster, safer, and more versatile connectivity for business and mission-critical users. We enable our customers to achieve more in both daily operations and emergency response to make the world more efficient and safer.

Official website:

About Unicom Technology (HK) Ltd

Unicom Technology (HK) Ltd was established in 1995 and is the Authorized Distributor and Service Center of Hytera Communications in Hong Kong and Macau. As an expert in providing total solutions for two-way radio communications, Unicom Technology offers one-stop shop services including system design, equipment sales, and repair & maintenance. The Unicom Technology engineers, certified by Hytera technical and product trainings, ensure that customers can have excellent after-sales support and the most optimum solution for radio system design.

Official website:

Spot by NetApp Announces Continuous Security Solution for Cloud Infrastructure

Spot Security identifies and assesses cloud security posture risks to help SecOps and CloudOps teams ensure continuous cloud security and compliance

SINGAPORE Media OutReach 27 July 2022 – NetApp® (NASDAQ: NTAP), a global, cloud-led, data-centric software company, today announced the general availability of Spot Security. Built for the cloud, Spot Security delivers a solution for continuous assessment and analysis of cloud security posture. Spot Security enables DevOps and SecOps teams to easily collaborate to identify misconfigurations, reduce their potential attack surface, and ensure compliance.

Spot Security’s agentless technology analyzes cloud resource relationships to provide clear visibility and prioritized actions, automatically determining the prospective exposure of each cloud resource and surfacing critical security threats based on their potential impact to the organization. These automated actions mitigate alert fatigue and keep cloud infrastructure secure and operations teams efficient.

With Spot Security, organizations can now enjoy:

360° Visibility: With a clear view into security posture and attack surfaces, network analysis, asset inventory, and cloud user behavior all from the same console via graph visualization of risk maps and service maps.

Prioritized In-Depth Analytics: Identify new risks, abnormal behavior or new cloud resources in an instant with continuous monitoring and analysis, ultimately providing clear objectives for DevOps teams to focus on and steering efforts to real issues, removing false positives and embedding security into cloud operations.

Automated Detection and Remediation: Detect misconfigurations and anomalies to efficiently support remediation of security and compliance risks across multi-cloud infrastructure.

Compliance: Support compliance to industry security standards and regulatory mandates, enabling businesses to stay compliant.

“DevOps engineers are constantly asked to deliver solutions to a wide range of challenges that can impact the efficiency and operations of their business,” said Azzedine Benameur, Head of Spot Security for Spot by NetApp. “Spot Security provides DevOps and SecOps a solution that meets the critical requirement to ensure the security of their dynamic cloud environment, further innovating the Spot by NetApp CloudOps suite of solutions that automate and optimize operations in the cloud.”

“Hybrid and multi-cloud are providing enterprises some of their biggest business opportunities of all time, while potentially bringing in new cyberthreats,” said Sanjay Rohatgi, senior vice president and general manager, NetApp Asia Pacific & Japan. “Spot Security is a decisive step towards NetApp’s efforts to bring the agility, flexibility and cost effectiveness of cloud to APAC organisations without compromising security.”

Additional Resources
· Spot Security
· Blog

Hashtag: #Spot

About NetApp

NetApp is a global, cloud-led, data-centric software company that empowers organizations to lead with data in the age of accelerated digital transformation. The company provides systems, software and cloud services that enable them to run their applications optimally from data center to cloud, whether they are developing in the cloud, moving to the cloud, or creating their own cloudlike experiences on premises. With solutions that perform across diverse environments, NetApp helps organizations build their own data fabric and securely deliver the right data, services and applications to the right people—anytime, anywhere. Learn more at or follow us on , , , and .

NETAPP, the NETAPP logo, and the marks listed at are trademarks of NetApp, Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Laos Seeks Fuel from Saudi Arabia

Laos may import oil from Saudi Arabia

Laos may consider importing fuels from Saudi Arabia after recent talks following a visit by the Saudi foreign minister in March.

Big news for the crypto trading space: CoinW announces all spot trading – free of charge

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 27 July 2022 – On July 13, 2022, CoinW made another major upgrade, announcing that all users of CoinW will not be charged transaction fees when trading in all spot currencies. Zero fees! This is another major breakthrough, after the official announcement on July 5, by leading Crypto Exchange, that all BTC transactions, will be free of charge. This is not only the first platform in the network to adopt 0 transaction fee for spot trading, but also a long-awaited benefit for platform users.

As we all know, exchanges can provide investors with cryptocurrency trading, but no matter which trading method, the exchange will charge some fees as the cost of maintaining the normal operation of the exchange. According to statistics, CoinW spot trading has a total of 342 coins and 366 trading pairs, with rich trading categories. It is easy to see from the BTC transaction free of charge campaign that CoinW actually puts the interests of users in the first place and always aims to improve the user experience.

CoinW’s CEO said, “This whole site spot trading free of charge event is the first innovation and major creation in the cryptocurrency exchange industry. 0 transaction fee allows CoinW users to be one step ahead at the beginning of the race, and only need to devote themselves to trading without worrying about the cost. This can significantly increase user interaction, while bringing competition and challenges to the industry.”

Hashtag: #CoinW

Suspect Apprehended for Rape and Murder in Houaphanh Province

Houaphanh Province

A man was apprehended following the rape and murder of a woman who was discovered dead on 17 July along the San River in Viengxay district, Houaphanh Province.