Of all ransom-ware attacks between August 2020 and July 2021, attacks on corporations, such as infrastructure, travel, financial services, and other businesses, made up to 57 per cent
A 64 per cent increase has been in ransom-ware attacks between August 2020 and July 2021, revealed a report on Thursday.
121 ransom-ware incidents were analysed between August 2020 and July 2021 by Barracuda, a cloud-enabled security solutions provider, in its latest Threat Spotlight.
They found many ransom-ware attacks are being led by a handful of high-profile ransom-ware gangs.
New ransom-ware strain DarkSide caused 8 per cent of the ransom-ware attacks, while ransom-ware gang Revil accounted for 19 per cent of the attacks.
“Ransom-ware criminals have refined their tactics to create a double extortion scheme. The initial steps towards safeguarding an organisation from possible ransom-ware attacks involve assuming vulnerability and setting a goal of not paying the ransom”, said Murali Urs, Country Manager, Barracuda Networks India, in a statement.
It is also “necessary to implement anti-phishing capabilities in email and other collaboration tools, and consistently train your users for email security awareness”, and “crucial to stay put with a secure data protection solution that can identify your critical data assets and implement disaster and recovery capabilities”, Urs said.
From trusted software vendors to IT service providers, ransom-ware criminals are penetrating the foundation of the digital economy across the globe.
Up from just 18 per cent in Barracuda Network’s 2020 study, of all ransom-ware attacks between August 2020 and July 2021, attacks on corporations, such as infrastructure, travel, financial services, and other businesses, made up to 57 per cent.
Infrastructure-related businesses account for 10 per cent of all the attacks. In fact, ransom-ware attacks are quickly evolving to software supply chain attacks, which reach more businesses in a single attempt
While analysing the ransom payment trends in the past years, Barracuda researchers are also witnessing a dramatic spike in the amount. The average ransom being demanded per incident is over $10 million dollars.
Only 18 per cent of the incidents had less than $10 million ransom demand, and 30 per cent of the incidents had greater than $30 million dollars ransom asks.
However, there have been multiple instances of victims reducing ransom payments by deploying negotiation tactics. JBS negotiated a $22.5 million ransom payment down to $11 million, and Brenntag, a chemical distributor in Germany, negotiated a $7.5 million ransom demand down to $4.4 million, the report said.
Also read: CIO News interviews Shri Wangki Lowang, Minister (IT) of Arunachal Pradesh
Do Follow: CIO News LinkedIn Account | CIO News Facebook | CIO News Youtube | CIO News Twitter
About us:
CIO News, a proprietary of Mercadeo, produces award-winning content and resources for IT leaders across any industry through print articles and recorded video interviews on topics in the technology sector such as Digital Transformation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Cloud, Robotics, Cyber-security, Data, Analytics, SOC, SASE, among other technology topics.
CIO News also covers the professional journeys of CIOs across all industries through print articles.
