Trend Micro blocked more than 94 billion threats in 2021, aimed at consumer, government and business customers.

The threats were prevented by the cybersecurity firm's Smart Protection Network.

According to Trend Micro, the volume of detections represents a 42% increase on the number of detections recorded in 2020. It reveals that attacks surged by over 53 billion in the second half of 2021 after Trend Micro blocked 41 billion threats in the first half 2021.

The threats were detected by more than five trillion threat queries, a 36% year-on-year increase from queries in 2020. Trend Micro's SPN leverages over 250 million sensors across the broadest attack surface globally to proactively protect organisations and individuals faster.

"Trend Micro detects threats across endpoints, mobile, servers, IoT/IIoT, home networks, messaging, network, web and cloud environments," says Mick McCluney, technical director Australia and New Zealand, Trend Micro.

"That's a testament to our continuous effort to expand attack surface protections and improve our advanced detection technologies deployed to 500,000 commercial and government accounts and millions of consumer customers," he says.

"But it also underscores the mounting threat from bad actors, as outlined in our 2022 predictions report."

Despite a double-digit surge in detected cyber-threats from 2020 to 2021, Trend Micro blocked 66% fewer ransomware attacks over the period, reinforcing the theory that these threats are becoming more targeted. Another contributing factor in this decrease is that more ransomware attacks are being blocked in earlier stages before being deployed. Over 14 million attacks were proactively stopped in 2021 before they could impact customers.

"Even with Trend Micro's comprehensive cloud-first protection capabilities, security teams must be prepared for another onslaught of threats in 2022," McCluney says.

"Trend Micro predicts that Internet of Things systems, global supply chains, cloud environments and DevOps functions will come under increasing scrutiny from attackers over the coming year," he says.

"Enhanced risk-based patching, XDR, server hardening, Zero Trust, network monitoring and DevSecOps practices will be critical to prevent spiralling cyber risk in 2022."

Trend Micro's cybersecurity platform protects hundreds of thousands of organisations and millions of individuals across clouds, networks, devices, and endpoints. As a specialist in cloud and enterprise cybersecurity, the platform delivers a range of advanced threat defence techniques optimised for environments like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google, and central visibility for better, faster detection and response. The company has more than 7000 employees across 65 countries.

Last year, Trend Micro announced the launch of Trend Micro Device Security Ultimate, the first-of-its-kind to protect PC, Mac, mobile phones, tablets, and smart home devices as one solution.

The solution also brings together identity theft and dark web monitoring, WiFi protection, password manager and parental controls into one comprehensive offering, to keep individuals and families safe no matter where they are and what device they use.