Data compiled by Atlas VPN reveals there have been nearly 404 million malware infections during the last 30 days worldwide, which makes over 10 million cases per day. More than 64% of the malicious attacks were targeting educational institutions.

In April, the number of global infections worldwide was rising and falling from 10 million to nearly 16 million daily cases. On the first day of the month, there have been around 12 million infections registered worldwide. Then, the number started dropping steadily, reaching the lowest point on April 5: Kaspersky Cyberthreats map detected about 10 million infections that day.

Since April 5, the number of local malware infections started increasing, reaching over 13.5 million of registered cases on April 7. It slightly dropped the next day but increased to 14 million infections on April 9.

Starting from April 9, the number began to decrease steadily, dropping to 11 million cases detected on the 12th day of the month. It then jumped to 14 million cases on April 13 and altered around 15 million infections during the next couple of days.

On April 16, the number of local infections reached its peak, hitting nearly 16 million cases worldwide. Since then, it started decreasing and dropped to 11 million infections on April 19. During the next week, the number was fluctuating from 11.7 million to 15.1 million infections per day.

Central Asia was the most targeted region worldwide

This month, the Central Asia region suffered from the largest number of local attacks. The statistics show the percentage of malware-infected devices in a particular area that have Kaspersky antivirus running. Therefore, it is worth noting that the actual numbers could be bigger since the rest of the devices may be using different antivirus software or none at all.

In April, at least 32.13% of devices in Tajikistan were exposed to malware, followed by Uzbekistan, with 31.44%. In China, Kaspersky detected malware in 26.93% of the devices. In both Venezuela and Brazil, about 12% of devices experienced malware infections, followed by at least 11% of infected devices in Mexico.

Belarus and Russia were the most affected countries in the European region. According to Kaspersky, 22.07% of devices in Belarus that use their antivirus software were exposed to malware, while the number reached 21.82% in Russia.

Education field experienced over 64% of cyber threats worldwide

In April, education experienced over 4.2 million malware infections, which makes 64.77% of the 6.5 million attacked devices, according to Microsoft. Educational institutions were exposed to the largest number of malware attacks since criminals expect school staff or students are not well-trained in cybersecurity.

The number of malware attacks is expected to rise during the exam period. Hence, if schools are planning on holding exams remotely, they should prepare and get experienced IT specialists to check the systems to prevent sensitive information from being stolen.

The second one in the list is the business and professional services sector: with over 623 thousand encounters, the industry experienced 9% of all cases. Similarly, with nearly 540 thousand cases, retail and consumer goods faced 8% of all infections.

Meanwhile, financial and insurance services experience 5% of malware infections globally: Microsoft detected almost 330 thousand cases in the field. Close to the financial and insurance industry is healthcare: nearly 270 thousand infections were detected in the sector, which contains over 4% of the total.

At the same time, with 3% of the total number, the aerospace and automobiles field faced almost 200 thousand malicious attacks. Next to it, there was mining, chemicals, oils, and gas: with nearly 3%, it was exposed to 194 thousand attacks.

Finally, there have been 162 thousand malware attacks in the transportation and hospitality field, which makes about 2.5% of attacked devices.