LockBit Reigns Supreme in Soaring Ransomware Landscape
The last quarter of 2023 saw an 80% year-on-year increase in ransomware victim claims, according to ReliaQuest
Ransomware encrypts or steals data to disrupt operations and extort victims, making backups, access controls, and incident response essential.
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Background for this topic.
Ransomware is malware used to deny access to systems or data, usually by encrypting files and demanding payment for decryption. Many operations also steal sensitive information and threaten to publish it, so an attack can create both an availability crisis and a privacy or disclosure risk. Initial access may involve phishing, stolen credentials, exposed remote services, or exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities; attackers may then move through the network before deploying the payload.
Defenses should combine vulnerability management, phishing-resistant authentication where practical, endpoint and network monitoring, and backups that are isolated from routine administrator access and regularly tested for recovery. Organizations should also limit privileges and segment critical systems to reduce the blast radius. An incident requires rapid containment, preservation of forensic evidence, restoration from known-good backups, and assessment of notification, legal, and regulatory obligations. Threat intelligence can help identify relevant criminal infrastructure or tactics, but it does not replace sound access control, patching, detection, and recovery practices.
The last quarter of 2023 saw an 80% year-on-year increase in ransomware victim claims, according to ReliaQuest
A GAO report found that federal agencies are not assessing whether critical infrastructure sectors are implementing NIST ransomware protection guidance
Global collaborative effort focused on combating the global rise of phishing, malware and ransomware
Energy firm Schneider Electric said a ransomware incident, reportedly perpetrated by the Cactus group, has led to data being accessed from its Sustainability Business division
Netenrich analized the ransom note pattern saying the group is refining their messages to victims
New data from Corvus found that ransomware incidents rose by 68% in 2023 compared to 2022, but law enforcement takedowns led to a fall in Q4
FortiGuard said the variant was found in an Office document using a VBA script