Ride the Lightning

Ransomware Increases by 715% in First Half of 2020

September 10, 2020

ZDNet reported on September 9 that cybersecurity company Bitdefender's Mid-Year Threat Landscape Report 2020 noted a 715% increase in ransomware attacks in the first half of 2020, much of that increase due to people working from home.

These days, a single attack can result in cyber criminals making hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. That's one hell of a paycheck.

Not only has the number of ransomware attacks increased, but ransomware has continued evolving, with some of the most popular forms of ransomware last year doing a disappearing act while new forms of ransomware have blossomed. Some are even more disruptive and damaging than their predecessors.

"Looking into the evolution of last year's ransomware families and how they've changed this year, most of them have actually gone down in numbers. This year's popular ransomware families are not last year's popular ransomware families," Liviu Arsene, global cybersecurity researcher at Bitdefender told ZDNet.

Hackers are making good on their threats to leak data they've stolen if the victim doesn't pay – something that might strike fear into future victims and encourage them to cave to extortion demands more quickly.

"If they do that just once, they set an example for everyone else who becomes infected, because those who don't pay end up with data leaked and a GDPR fine. Everybody else who gets infected afterwards is going to see the attackers are serious," Arsene explained.

As always, follow the conventional wisdom. Make sure that your backups are properly engineered and tested. Make sure that 2FA is deployed everywhere. And install security patches as soon as they are released.

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
3975 University Drive, Suite 225|Fairfax, VA 22030
Email: Phone: 703-359-0700
Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity/Information Technology
https://senseient.com
https://twitter.com/sharonnelsonesq
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharondnelson
https://amazon.com/author/sharonnelson