Malware Complexity Surges 127% as Legacy Security Systems Fail to Keep Pace

OPSWAT's 2025 Threat Report reveals a staggering 127% increase in malware complexity over six months, with legacy security systems missing one in every 14 threats. The analysis of 890,000 sandbox scans shows attackers are using multi-stage execution chains and hiding payloads in benign formats like .NET Bitmaps and Google services.

Critical infrastructure sectors including manufacturing, energy, and utilities face the heaviest targeting. New techniques like ClickFix clipboard attacks are spreading among criminal and nation-state actors. The report warns that signature-based defenses can't handle today's evasive, behavior-driven malware, urging organizations to adopt dynamic, behavioral detection systems.

Source: Industrial Cyber