Ransomware attacks rise over 60 percent
In the last year, the US has experienced a dramatic 63 percent increase in ransomware attacks, with the UK seeing an even greater rise of 67 percent.
The latest State of Ransomware report from Malwarebytes shows the share of attacks carried out by gangs outside the top 15 increased from 25 percent to 31 percent, indicating that ransomware is becoming more accessible to a broader range of cybercriminals.
Tracing the destructive path of ransomware's evolution
The year is 1989. “Rain Man” wins the Academy Award for Best Picture. Motorola releases the world’s smallest and lightest phone. The Berlin Wall falls. Taylor Swift is born. It also begins the dawn of a new era of cyber extortion.
The AIDS Trojan arrived innocuously, distributed via floppy disk to public health professionals. But it harbored a nasty surprise. After the 90th PC reboot, it cryptographically locked victims’ hard drives, demanding a $189 payment to unlock files. While this attack was thwarted easily, it changed the game. Over the next 30 years, ransomware proliferated from curiosity to a catastrophic threat fueled by an unrelenting arms race between extortionists and security teams.
Ransomware groups develop more sophisticated business models
Ransomware groups continue to refine their craft, building and scaling business models that resemble legitimate corporate enterprises according to a new report.
The latest Ransomware Radar Report from Rapid7 finds smaller organizations are becoming a more frequent target too. Companies with annual revenues around $5 million are falling victim to ransomware twice as often as those in the $30-50 million range and five times more frequently than those with a $100 million revenue.
Ransomware in the global healthcare industry
The World Health Organization (The WHO) hosted a webinar on the 18 July to discuss the critical importance of cybersecurity in the healthcare sector, highlighting the severity of the situation the industry is currently facing. Healthcare organizations are increasingly relying on digital systems to facilitate their daily workflow, but the prevalence of outdated legacy technology in the sector is rendering it vulnerable to cyber-attacks with severe consequences.
As has been demonstrated with recent high-profile attacks on healthcare organizations, such as the US’ Ascension and Change Healthcare incidents, and the UK’s NHS attack, the healthcare industry must review its priorities, the threats it faces, and its security measures, without delay.
Report highlights cyber risks to the aviation industry
It's fair to say that no industry is truly safe from cyber attacks these days, the aviation sector is at particular risk due to the volume of customer data it handles and the potential to cause widespread disruption.
A new report from SecurityScorecard focuses on cybersecurity vulnerabilities across the airline industry and its various supply chains.
Enterprises face serious ransomware epidemic
A new global ransomware study of nearly 1,000 organizations in a variety of industries finds most firms are facing a never-ending series of breaches, a serious epidemic that leaves them continuously in the crosshairs of ransomware gangs.
The study from Semperis also shows that 39 percent of attacked companies in the US, UK, France and Germany paid a ransom four times or more in the past 12 months.
How risk profiling can help prevent cyberattacks [Q&A]
Recent cyberattacks like Volt Typhoon, BlackCat ransomware syndicate, and NuGet serve as stark reminders of the critical importance of monitoring cyber risks as these attacks could all have been prevented.
We spoke to Randy Watkins, chief technology officer at Critical Start, to discuss why organizations must know the difference between cyber risks and threats, and how those enterprises that fail to mitigate against cyber risk will remain reactive, and ultimately fall behind their competitors.
The real impact of AI on ransomware
Artificial intelligence is the biggest topic of 2024. While some are already tired of seeing AI constantly in the headlines, it will only become more prevalent. Keeping up with how it changes business practices is then critical. AI is undeniably disrupting most digital industries, including cybercrime.
As a result, it is important to cut through the hype and get to the facts about AI. A lot has been said about AI's potential impact on the global ransomware threat, but what is the real impact?
Organizations suffer multiple ransomware infections
A new report reveals that organizations are suffering multiple ransomware infections, 18 percent have suffered a ransomware infection 10 or more times in a 24-month period, a further 18 percent were infected five to nine times, and 30 percent were infected between two and four times.
The study from anti-ransomware platform Halcyon also shows that data exfiltration occurs in nearly every major ransomware attack today, and nearly 60 percent of respondents say that sensitive or regulated data was exfiltrated from their organization, with 55 percent reporting the attackers issued an additional ransom demand to protect the exfiltrated data.
Ransomware up 33 percent in May as new groups emerge
The latest GRIT Ransomware Report from GuidePoint Security shows that May this year resulted in a 33 percent increase overall in ransomware activity compared to April 2024, indicating a degree of seasonality given a similar increase month-on-month in May 2023 relative to April 2023.
May 2024 closed with an increase in overall victim volume. However, a deep review reveals that the rise was driven disproportionately by LockBit's 175 posted victims, accounting for 37 percent of the month’s total publicly posted ransomware victims.
Ransomware victims unable to recover over 40 percent of affected data
Ransomware remains an ongoing threat for organizations and is the largest single cause of IT outages and downtime as 41 percent of data is compromised during a cyberattack, according to the latest Veeam 2024 Ransomware Trends Report.
The report, based on 1,200 responses from organizations that have faced a security incident, reveals that only 57 percent of the compromised data is usually recovered, leaving organizations vulnerable to substantial data loss and negative business impacts as a result.
2023 saw a global rise in ransomware and hacktivism
A new report from threat intelligence company Intel 471 shows a global rise in ransomware and hacktivism.
The report notes 4,429 ransomware attacks in 2023, almost double the 2,344 observed in 2022, with the most prominent variants being LockBit 3.0, ALPHV, CLOP, Play and 8BASE. North America saw a notable 125.3 percent increase in ransomware, followed by Europe with 67.7 percent, Asia with 46.8 percent, South America with 40.9 percent.
Combating small ransomware attacks
Ransomware attacks are so destructive that it’s easy to assume that all of them are large-scale in nature. However, this isn’t always the case, and ransomware gangs can do incredible amounts of damage with relatively small amounts of data. For example, an analysis carried out by Zerto of 116 globally diverse ransomware attacks spanning 43 different ransomware variants uncovered a median dataset size of just 183.5 GB.
When considered alongside a study carried out by Splunk, which says the average ransomware can encrypt a gigabyte of data in 47.7 seconds, the typical encryption detonation process for 183.5 GB of data would take nearly two and a half hours: That’s not very long at all.
Nearly 1 in 5 ransomware attacks results in a lawsuit
A new study from Comparitech finds that around a fifth of ransomware attacks in the US led to a lawsuit in 2023.
It shows that 355 lawsuits were filed following 3,002 ransomware attacks. Of these 228 have been completed and 134 were successful -- that is they led to a data breach settlement, resulted in the company being fined for failing to safeguard systems and/or data, or were settled out of court.
Ransomware rampage -- how to fight back against attacks [Q&A]
Amid a tumultuous 2023 marked by economic anxieties and rising geopolitical tensions, threat actors seized the opportunity to weaponize fear and uncertainty. While ransomware trends had previously ebbed and flowed, experiencing a 23 percent decrease in just the first half of 2022, they took a shocking turn in 2023, skyrocketing by a staggering 95 percent.
We spoke with Andrew Costis, chapter leader of the Adversary Research Team at AttackIQ, to discuss why ransomware has taken headlines by storm and how the industry can empower security teams with the tools to fight back.
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