Vectra, a California based Cyber Threat Detection and Response firm discovered in its study that cloud-based shared files are extremely vulnerable to ransomware attacks. As most Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering cloud providers allow malicious encryption of shared files on network servers.
Infiltrators can easily evade the security perimeters and target files with encryption algorithms which remain under their control say, experts.
All these conclusions were made in the Vectra’s 2019 Spotlight report on ransomware, where hackers were found targeting cloud, datacenters and enterprise infrastructures with data encrypting and wiping malware.
For those organizations who store their business data on cloud platforms, the cost of downtime due to operational paralysis, the inability to recover backed up data and damage to reputation were quintessential when hackers target their database.
As ransomware is faster to launch for cybercriminals, it has become the most popular earning resource for them.
“When it comes to the UK, cyber extortion along with ransomware has become most popular forms of cybercriminal activity”, says Rob Jones, director of Threat leadership at the National Crime Agency (NCA).
“As companies do not have skilled workforce to detect and thwart threats in time, cyber attacks have become most popularly used digital weapons in modern warfare”, says Holger Shultz, the CEO, and Founder of Cybersecurity Insiders.
Vectra report says that the most popular industries which took a ransomware hit between Jan-June ’19 were those related to finance and insurance industry (35%), along with healthcare (18%), energy (17%) and manufacturing sector (13%).
