Ransomware is once again the center of attention among all cyber threats

• With a 53% increase year over year, the education and research sector continues to be the industry that is most frequently attacked.
• Ransomware attacks affected 1 out of 40 firms globally, a concerning 59% increase from the previous year.

Cybercrimes are becoming more prevalent day by day. They are on the rise and are expected to cost the global economy $445 billion a year, with commercial losses from intellectual property theft outpacing personal losses to individuals of $160 billion. It can sometimes be impossible for anyone to regulate how far cyber threats can be minimized.

Early this year, a same group of hackers was said to have breached Samsung and NVIDIA. More than 71,000 Nvidia workers’ login information was posted online after the company refused to meet the hackers’ demands. Meanwhile, for Samsung, 190GB of the company’s data, including the Galaxy device’s source code, was leaked online.

With still a half of the year left, it’s possible that more businesses may be targeted by cybercriminals, proving that regardless of how big or small the firm is, anyone can be a victim.

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According to a recent report by Check Point Research (CPR), worldwide cyber threats reached an all-time high in the second quarter of 2022 and rose by 32% over the same period in the previous year. The number of attacks per organization per week peaked at 1,200 attacks worldwide.

Industries facing cyber threats

With an average of more than 2,300 attacks per organization every week, cybercriminals appear to focus the majority of their efforts on the education and research industry. In comparison to Q2 2021, this indicates an increase of 53%.

Following this is the government/military sector, which has had 1,600 weekly attacks on average, an increase of 44% from the same time last year. ISP/MSP, healthcare, and communication industries come next, all of which experience an average of 1,300 attacks per week, per organization, marking a significant double-digit growth year over year.

Ransomware isn’t going anywhere

Since ransomware has been the center of attention lately, it should come as no surprise that it will do so in the future as well.

In the report, the government/military sector reported a staggering increase of 135%, reaching a ratio of 1 out of 24 organizations affected by ransomware on a weekly basis. Retailers and the wholesale sector saw the largest spike in ransomware attacks, with an alarming increase of 182%, compared to the same period last year.

In addition, ransomware affected 1 out of 40 firms weekly, up 59% year over year (1 out of 64 organizations in Q2 2021). Latin America has experienced the highest increase in attacks, with 1 out of 23 organizations affected weekly, a 43% YoY increase from 1 out of 33 in Q2 2021. Asia has experienced a 33% YoY increase, with 1 out of 17 organizations affected weekly.

Tech Wire Asia reached out to Omer Dembinsky, Data Group Manager at Check Point Software, for comments on the report and he said that ransomware attacks are showing no signs of slowing down.

“Right now, we can say that 1 out of every 40 organizations we track is impacted by ransomware each week, which makes for a 59% YoY increase. Hackers are leveraging the increase in attack surface from remote work and learning, and the war between Ukraine and Russia also helps drive the proliferating trend, as geopolitical tensions rising inspires hackers to take sides. Lastly, the willingness of organizations to meet ransomware demands in order to protect patients has proved the business of ransomware to be highly lucrative. Hence, we see that hackers are continuing to invest resources in going after healthcare organizations. We strongly recommend organizations everywhere to take note of our ransomware prevention tips, such as backing up data, keeping systems up to date and training employees on awareness.” commented Dembinsky.

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