According to a report released by SonicWall, over 300 million ransomware attacks were observed in the first half of 2021, surpassing 2020s total of 302.73 million. And the highlight of the find is that the month June 2021 alone witnessed a record new high of 78.4 million file encrypting malware than compared to April and May of this year.
There has been a massive spike in the attacks in United States and UK alone as the attacks in the said two nations made up 185 percent and 144 percent of the total number of attacks, respectively.
Uncertainness accompanied by anxiety about when the businesses will leap back to normalcy, and the recent work from home norm has made the cyber crooks launch sophisticated attacks on corporations to gain finances and to sow discord. And this is said to have led to the rise in ransomware attacks.
SonicWall Capture Labs states that out of all ransomware attacks RYUK, Cerber and SamSam constituted to over 64%, 17% and 13% respectively. And the regions that have been negatively affected in the 1st half of 2020 are Germany, South Africa, Brazil, UK and US.
As there is no respite in the rise of COVID-19 cases, businesses are still allowing employees to work from home, thus paving way for cyber criminals to continue to exploit the loopholes in the current cyber landscape.
It is vital for organizations to think big and go with a practice security approach to defend themselves from both seen and unforeseen threats.
Note– FBI has already issued a public statement in November 2019 to not pay any ransom to those spreading Ransomware. As it not only propels the crime on a further note but also doesn’t guarantee a decryption key in-return.
