Ransomware is gaining strength
"Ignorance does not free ..." or why Ransomware continues to flourish
Hi, Habr! Today we want to talk about the results of a curious survey that Acronis conducted online in March 2018. It turned out that the attackers who are betting on Ransomware, act logically - an absolute majority are not ready for such attacks and the amount of damage continues to grow.
')
Under the cut - detailed information and statistics, as well as the results of the survey.
First, let's raise some scary statistics. According to CybeSecurity Ventures experts, in 2019 the damage from Ransomware will amount to more than 11 billion dollars , despite the fact that in 2018, experts expect only 5 billion damage. Moreover, the frequency of attacks in “pieces” is growing. Not only has the number of extortionists increased by 46% in 2017, according to CybeSecurity Ventures predictions, by the end of 2019 every 14 seconds, some organization will encrypt extortionists when, at the end of 2017, such attacks average once every 40 seconds .
To clarify the situation, we ordered a survey among corporate users in countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, France, Spain, Germany and Japan. And, most interestingly, 62.5% never heard of extortionists programs. This means that no protection against them is applied in principle.
In fact, the growth of the damage that analysts are talking about is happening precisely because most companies have no protection against ransomware programs. Moreover, the attackers themselves are constantly developing their methods of social engineering, and are also finding new loopholes for introducing malicious code. In most cases, standard antiviruses and Internet Security class systems cannot counteract a new kind of extortionist - and to circumvent signature protection a hacker often needs just to recompile a program with minimal code changes. similar attacks. As a confirmation - some more statistics. The Ponemon Institute found that 69% of corporate users believe that the installed antivirus will not be able to cope with new threats. Perhaps they have every reason to think that way.
In fact, only a carefully thought-out and well-implemented backup system allows real protection from ransomware programs. In case you have a copy of the data that is not too old, you can simply give a damn about the encrypted files and report the ransomware to the competent authorities. It is only necessary to perform backup frequently enough, and solutions with incremental addition are ideal in this issue.
However, the year 2018 brought another problem to this area. Cybercriminals themselves began to realize that well-established backup mechanisms cope with the threat. Therefore, the attack vectors began to spread specifically to backup copies and the Backup & Restore systems themselves. By the way, this is why we had to add heuristic components to Acronis Backup and Acronis True Image to repel attacks of Ransomware, which perfectly “understand” the danger of backup systems.
In fact, the list of actions that must be taken to counter the Ransomware is quite simple and consists of only four steps.
Unfortunately, the survey results showed a disappointing picture. Not only that over 62% do not know about the existence of the threat of Ransomware at all, 33% of the participants do not save backup copies of their data at all - either in the cloud or on their computer. At the same time, 39% work with 4 or more devices that store important data for them. It is this state of affairs that makes Ransomware a great threat to business and private users, although it would be quite simple to cope with it by installing a special protection system.
Hi, Habr! Today we want to talk about the results of a curious survey that Acronis conducted online in March 2018. It turned out that the attackers who are betting on Ransomware, act logically - an absolute majority are not ready for such attacks and the amount of damage continues to grow.
')
Under the cut - detailed information and statistics, as well as the results of the survey.
First, let's raise some scary statistics. According to CybeSecurity Ventures experts, in 2019 the damage from Ransomware will amount to more than 11 billion dollars , despite the fact that in 2018, experts expect only 5 billion damage. Moreover, the frequency of attacks in “pieces” is growing. Not only has the number of extortionists increased by 46% in 2017, according to CybeSecurity Ventures predictions, by the end of 2019 every 14 seconds, some organization will encrypt extortionists when, at the end of 2017, such attacks average once every 40 seconds .
To clarify the situation, we ordered a survey among corporate users in countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, France, Spain, Germany and Japan. And, most interestingly, 62.5% never heard of extortionists programs. This means that no protection against them is applied in principle.
In fact, the growth of the damage that analysts are talking about is happening precisely because most companies have no protection against ransomware programs. Moreover, the attackers themselves are constantly developing their methods of social engineering, and are also finding new loopholes for introducing malicious code. In most cases, standard antiviruses and Internet Security class systems cannot counteract a new kind of extortionist - and to circumvent signature protection a hacker often needs just to recompile a program with minimal code changes. similar attacks. As a confirmation - some more statistics. The Ponemon Institute found that 69% of corporate users believe that the installed antivirus will not be able to cope with new threats. Perhaps they have every reason to think that way.
What is the power? In backup
In fact, only a carefully thought-out and well-implemented backup system allows real protection from ransomware programs. In case you have a copy of the data that is not too old, you can simply give a damn about the encrypted files and report the ransomware to the competent authorities. It is only necessary to perform backup frequently enough, and solutions with incremental addition are ideal in this issue.
However, the year 2018 brought another problem to this area. Cybercriminals themselves began to realize that well-established backup mechanisms cope with the threat. Therefore, the attack vectors began to spread specifically to backup copies and the Backup & Restore systems themselves. By the way, this is why we had to add heuristic components to Acronis Backup and Acronis True Image to repel attacks of Ransomware, which perfectly “understand” the danger of backup systems.
Simple hygiene
In fact, the list of actions that must be taken to counter the Ransomware is quite simple and consists of only four steps.
- Back up ALL important data to disk in the cloud
- Install all the "patches" on the OS and application software, so that there are fewer vulnerabilities
- Remember about phishing - social engineering has reached great heights, and infected emails look very convincing lately.
- Keep your security software (antivirus, firewall and backup tools) up to date and enabled.
Unfortunately, the survey results showed a disappointing picture. Not only that over 62% do not know about the existence of the threat of Ransomware at all, 33% of the participants do not save backup copies of their data at all - either in the cloud or on their computer. At the same time, 39% work with 4 or more devices that store important data for them. It is this state of affairs that makes Ransomware a great threat to business and private users, although it would be quite simple to cope with it by installing a special protection system.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/352434/
All Articles