Digital attackers are sending around love-themed malicious emails in an attempt to infect recipients with the Nemty ransomware. If you’ve been kicking around in the world of IT security for more years than you’d like to admit, then you’ll surely remember the ILOVEYOU virus (also known as the “Love Bug” or “Loveletter”).

Historically, common detection methods have used file hashes (MD5, SHA1, and SHA256)—unique signatures based on the entire contents of the file—to identify malware. Modern threat actors have increased in sophistication to a point where every instance of a given malware will have a different hash, and that hash will vary from machine to machine.

Ransomware has been a growing threat in recent years, and experts now estimate the cost of these attacks at $7.5 billion in the USA alone in 2019. The affected institutions include 966 government agencies, educational establishments, and healthcare providers. Since most ransomware attacks stem from a small mistake made by one end user, either through phishing emails or stolen credentials, the threat is only expected to increase in the years to come.

Malware closed out 2019 on a strong note. According to AV-TEST, malware authors’ efforts throughout the year helped push the total number of known malware above one billion samples. This development wouldn’t have been possible without the vigor exhibited by malware authors in the fall of 2019. Indeed, after detecting 8.5 million new samples in June and 9.56 million specimens the following month, AV-TEST saw the monthly totals jump up above 13 million in August.

Email security refers to various cybersecurity measures to secure the access and content of an email account or service. Proper email security can protect sensitive information in email communications, prevent phishing attacks, spear phishing and email spoofing and protect against unauthorized access, loss or compromise of one or more email addresses.