“There is good news this month on the email-based front of the threat landscape. According to our metrics, the overall spam rate has dropped to 49.7 percent. This is the first time this rate has fallen below 50 percent of email for over a decade. The last time Symantec recorded a similar spam rate was clear back in September of 2003. Phishing rates and email-based malware were also down this month. However, there were 57.6 million new malware variants created in June, up from 44.5 million pieces of malware created in May and 29.2 million in April. This increase in activity lends more evidence to the idea that, with the continued drops in email-based malicious activity, attackers are simply moving to other areas of the threat landscape. Ransomware attacks are up in June, with over 477,000 detected during the month. While still below the levels seen at the end of 2014, this is the second month in a row ransomware attacks have increased since they reached a 12-month low in April. Crypto-ransomware is also up in June, reaching the highest levels seen since December 2014. In other news, after a busy month in May targeted attacks against the Manufacturing industry leveled out in June, dropping from 41 percent to 22 percent. Manufacturing still comes out on top in terms of sectors subject to targeted attacks, but activity is now in line with what is being seen in the Finance, Insurance, & Real Estate sector and the Services – Professional sector, which come in at second and third place.”