THREAT SPOTLIGHT: RANSOMWARE

Cybercriminals are targeting government, healthcare, and education organizations with ransomware. Although ransomware has been around for more than two decades, the threat has been growing rapidly in recent years.

- Fleming Shi

In the past 12 months, Barracuda researchers identified and analyzed 74 ransomware incidents. Last year, an in-depth look at municipal ransomware attacks showed local government is a preferred target of cybercriminals. That’s the still the case; the majority of ransomware attacks looked at this year were on municipalities, including local governments, schools, libraries, courts, and other entities. This year’s analysis also includes data about organizations related to healthcare and logistics, two industries critical to our physical wellbeing and economic sustainability and recovery throughout the pandemic.

HIGHLIGHTED THREAT

Ransomware: Cybercriminals use malicious software, delivered as an email attachment or link, to infect the network and lock email, data, and other critical files until a ransom is paid. These evolving and sophisticated attacks are damaging and costly. They can cripple day-to-day operations, cause chaos, and result in financial losses from downtime, ransom payments, recovery costs, and other unbudgeted and unanticipated expenses.

With the pandemic putting millions of workers at home, cybercriminals gained a larger attack surface as the result of the fast and widespread shift to remote work. The weak security of home networks makes it easier for cybercriminals to compromise them, move laterally to business networks, and launch ransomware attacks.

THE DETAILS

In addition to heavily targeting municipalities, clearly an area of focus and success for cybercriminals, they’re now setting their sights on education and healthcare. The steady attacks on healthcare are no surprise, as a variety of cybersecurity threats and attacks related to the pandemic have been widely reported.