Tag Archive for: Doubled

New research shows reported ransomware attacks have doubled across key industries

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Fifth-annual report from Barracuda analyzes ransomware attack patterns that occurred between August 2022 and July 2023

Highlights:

  • Barracuda researchers identified and analyzed 175 publicly reported ransomware attacks from the past 12 months, and found that in three key industries — municipalities, education, and healthcare ― reported attacks have doubled since last year and more than quadrupled since 2021.

  • Researchers also saw a spike in the number of attacks on infrastructure-related industries.

CAMPBELL, Calif., Aug. 2, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Barracuda Networks, Inc., a leading provider of cloud-first security solutions, today published its fifth annual Threat Spotlight on ransomware. The new report looks at ransomware attack patterns that occurred between August 2022 and July 2023.

Barracuda Logo. (PRNewsFoto/Barracuda Networks, Inc.)

Barracuda Logo. (PRNewsFoto/Barracuda Networks, Inc.)

Read the full Threat Spotlight blog post: https://blog.barracuda.com/2023/08/02/threat-spotlight-ransomware-attacks-double-ai-tactics/

An in-depth look at ransomware trends
Barracuda researchers analyzed 175 publicly reported successful ransomware attacks across the world between August 2022 and July 2023, and in the primary categories Barracuda has been tracking — municipalities, healthcare and education — the number of reported attacks have all doubled since last year and more than quadrupled since 2021.

While successful ransomware attacks targeting infrastructure-related industries are lower in volume compared to the top three sectors, these industries also experienced more than twice the number of attacks compared to last year.

The analysis revealed similar patterns of escalation in other industries, particularly ransomware attacks on software businesses.

In the past 12 months, Barracuda’s SOC-as-a-service team observed the following types of incidents: business email compromise (BEC), ransomware, malware infection, insider threat, identity theft, and data leakage. Ransomware accounted for 27.3% of incidents, second only to BEC (36.4%).

This year also, Barracuda researchers also took a closer look the impact of generative AI tactics on ransomware attacks, looking at ways cybercriminals can use these capabilities to strike faster…

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Ransomware attacks on America’s health care systems more than doubled from 2016 to 2021, exposing the personal health information of millions

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The annual number of ransomware attacks on health care provider organizations more than doubled from 2016 to 2021, exposing the personal health information of nearly 42 million individuals. A new report from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health (SPH), published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Health Forum, shows that ransomware attacks on healthcare providers are not just increasing in frequency, they are also becoming more severe — exposing larger quantities of personal health information and affecting large organizations with multiple health care facilities.

To conduct the study, researchers created a database called the Tracking Healthcare Ransomware Events and Traits (THREAT), a unique tool that for the first time allows researchers to track the occurrence of ransomware attacks on health care provider organizations.

Ransomware is a type of malicious software that prevents users from accessing their electronic systems and demands a ransom to restore access. While some prominent ransomware attacks on health care delivery organizations have received media attention, there is currently no systematic documentation of the extent and effect of ransomware attacks on our health care system. 

In the first-ever comprehensive analysis of ransomware attacks on U.S. health care providers, researchers documented that between 2016 and 2021:

  • 374 instances of ransomware attacks on health care delivery organizations exposed the personal health information of nearly 42 million individuals. 
  • Ransomware attacks more than doubled on an annual basis, from 43 to 91 per year. 
  • The number of individuals whose personal health information was exposed increased from approximately 1.3 million in 2016 to more than 16.5 million in 2021. 
  • Disruptions in care for patients as a result of ransomware incidents occurred in 166 — or 44% — of attacks.
  • Among health care delivery facilities, clinics were the most frequent targets of ransomware attacks, followed by hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, mental/behavioral health facilities, dental practices and post-acute care organizations. 

“As health care delivery organizations have…

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Ransomware: The average ransom payment has doubled in just three months

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A new report into the state of ransomware at the tail end of 2019 has revealed that things aren’t getting any better.

Read more in my article on the Tripwire State of Security blog.

Graham Cluley

Mac malware more than doubled in 2017

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“The targets intended to be infected with this malware may have had reason to have Java installed, or it may have been installed via physical or some other access by a hacker targeting specific individuals,” he said. The third piece of Mac …
mac hacker – read more