Perhaps it's time to make sure you have one of the best antivirus programs installed, as a new report from Malwarebytes shows a dramatic increase in malware attacks that take advantage of the "confusion, fear and anxiety" surrounding the coronavirus.

The company's "Cybercrime tactics and techniques" paper notes a "dramatic Malwarebytes' blog post states that it has recorded a "dramatic increase" in the number of malware attacks.

Cybercriminals are delivering years-old malware in a brand new campaign that exploits the coronavirus crisis, Malwarebytes said. The study found that backdoor malware NetWiredRC, which had been inactive for about five months in 2019, saw a 200% increase in activity in March 2020 compared to December 2019.

Detection of the remote access Trojan AveMaria increased by about 110% from February to March. Hackers can use remote access Trojans (RATs) to remotely access desktops and webcams and steal passwords.

During the same time period, the DanaBot Trojan and information-stealing tools that steal online banking passwords saw a 160% increase in detection rates.

While non-malware-mediated phishing attacks remain the most popular attack method, cybercriminals are creatively using fraudulent websites to hide malware, according to MalwareBytes.

Hackers seized the opportunity as online shoppers increased due to the coronavirus blockade; in March, Malware Bytes recorded a 26% increase in credit card skimming attacks from the previous month.

Adam Kujawa, security evangelist and director of Malwarebytes Labs, told Tom's Guide: "We believe that Covid-19 disrupted the cybercrime economy as much as it disrupted the real world economy. We believe that Covid-19 has disrupted the cybercrime economy as much as it has disrupted the real world economy.

"Over the past two years, more sophisticated actors have focused on infecting corporate networks rather than ordinary consumers, primarily because of the greater return on investment.

"However, despite the variety of technical exploits used to infect business networks, the most common (and effective) method of infection is through malicious phishing emails, where users use the email to open files and infect their systems with hoping to fall for whatever gimmick was used to infect them.

Kujawa explained, however, that many potential victims have moved from the office to their homes, making them less reliable than they once were in getting them to fall for phishing attacks.

"Therefore, the possibility of targeting telecommuting employees or accessing networks through cloud or VPN services accessed by remote employees makes it "a) cheaper and b) workable" than working on developing new malware families. Many employees have decided to dust off old, unpopular malware families for that reason," Kujawa said.