A new report on malware has found that there is a direct correlation between geopolitical events and malware spikes, meaning that politics, more than profit, is now the major driver behind hacking.

The finding comes from researchers today at the Comodo Threat Intelligence Lab with their Global Malware Report 2017 that details malware tracked by the company throughout last year.

Elections, cyberespionage and even nuclear missile testing activity were all found to correlate with massive malware spikes. In the United States, Comodo detected a massive spike on Oct. 24 of Kryptik trojan detections, a form of malware that can compromise the infected system by allowing a remote hacker to gain access without the user’s permission or knowledge. Some 94 percent of those detections were in the state of Virginia where there was a hard-fought gubernatorial election scheduled for Nov. 7.

Meetings between political figures also triggered more malware, with Comodo detecting a spike of 20,000 virus infections in China in April on the day Chinese President Xi Jinping met President Trump. A meeting between Jared Kushner and Chinese officials in mid-May resulted in a 30,000-virus spike in the country.

Malware spikes were also triggered by nuclear activity, with one in May coming after North Korea fired test missiles and another after the rogue state tested a nuclear weapon Sept. 3. Come Sept.9, the report noted “a startling Trojan increase” when President Trump threatened at the United Nations to destroy North Korea.

“Comodo saw not only the top malware types such as trojan and backdoor, but also a range of uncategorized ‘other’ malware that helped to provide a fuller picture, causing spikes in the fall during President Trump’s tour of Japan, South Korea and Beijing and various public statements on North Korea as an accelerating nuclear threat,” the report noted. “Comodo’s analysis of these detections suggests that North Korean network administrators are attempting to protect computer systems running unlicensed copies of Windows 7, using a variety of means including the use of remote access tools to monitor user activity and by trying to bypass Windows User Account Control.”

Photo: iip-photo-archive/Flickr