We’ve been seeing more and more cybercriminals turning to ransomware as a go-to strategy to generate their criminal revenue. Many are turning to using both encryption and the theft and threatened publishing of victim data to double-up the chances of getting a payoff. This has lead to hearing about larger and larger ransoms demanded.
Cyber insurer Coalition’s H1 2020 Cyber Insurance Claims Report points out the increases are more than just anecdotal. According to the report in the first half of 2020:
- Ransomware attack frequency increased 260%
- Ransom demands increased 47%
- Maze and Ryuk ransomware variants represented 53% of all attacks
- Ransoms ranged from $1000 to over $2,000,000
According to Coalition, over half (54 percent) of attacks used email phishing attacks as the initial attack vector.
This massive increase is concerning. Organizations need to see these trends and heed their warning. With phishing being the primary vehicle, and remote workers being a consistent enabler of attacks, it’s time to educate your users via Security Awareness Training on both why and how to be security-minded when interacting with email and the web.
Ransomware gangs are only getting more cunning and greedy.The impact of their attacks will likely worsen, so it’s time to put protective measures – including your users – to stop these attacks to avoid becoming just another claim.