If you suffered a ransomware attack, there is a good chance you fell victim to the REvil/Sodinokibi variants, new research has foun. These variants make up 73 percent of the top 10 ransomware detected by cybersecurity experts McAfee, during Q2 2021 and are, as such, the most popular threats.
Ryuk, Babuk, and Cuba are also extremely popular.
In its “Advanced threat research report: October 2021” report, the company noted how criminals mostly target financial services with ransomware, followed by healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and professional services.
In fact, financial services companies took up 50 percent of the top 10 cloud incidents for the period. Cloud incidents against US-based firms accounted for more than a third (34 percent) of all recorded incidents, with India, Australia, Canada, and Brazil, rounding off the top five. Cloud incidents targeting the United States accounted for 52 percent of incidents recorded, McAfee added.
Criminals use various methods to distribute and deploy ransomware, but spreading via malware is still the most popular one. Spam is also growing more popular, as it showed the highest increase of reported incidents between Q1 and Q2 2021 - 250 percent. Malicious scripts (125 percent) and malware (47 percent) make up the top three.
The silver lining is that ransomware has become too big to be ignored. After the Colonial Pipeline and JBS attacks, law enforcement agencies around the world struck back with force, resulting in two of the most influential underground forums- XSS and Exploit- announcing a ban on ransomware advertisements.
McAfee also believes that this renewed focus caused the DarkSide ransomware group to suddenly go dark.
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