The IT Nerd

BlackFog today released the November State of Ransomware Report. Key findings for the month of November from Dr. Darren Williams, CEO and Founder, BlackFog:

• “Unusually, November saw the second highest number of ransomware attacks this year, a 180% increase year over year with a total of 42 attacks. There seems to be no end in sight, with recent insurance statistics demonstrating a general lack of preparedness. In fact, providers are now mandating more serious levels of protection before underwriting any new cybersecurity policy.
• The biggest changes this month saw the persistent use of data exfiltration at 89% and a further increase in the use of PowerShell, now utilized in 86% of all attacks.
• The greatest increases by industry involved Healthcare and Manufacturing with increases of 26% and 25% respectively. Smaller increases were observed in Education and Government, with 14% and 13% respectively, but continue to be the most targeted industries. Typically, these organizations struggle due to financial and skill shortages (please refer to BlackFog’s latest research article @ https://www.blackfog.com/cybersecurity-leaders-consider-quitting/). 
• LockBit easily took the lead this month in terms of variants with a 33% increase in successful attacks followed by BlackByte and BlackCat with increases of 25% and 14% respectively.”

Today’s full report can be found here: https://privacy.blackfog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/BlackFogRansomwareReport-Nov-2022.pdf

BlackFog’s monthly State of Ransomware Report for October is out and the key findings for the month of October from Dr. Darren Williams, CEO and Founder, BlackFog are:

• October saw the highest number of confirmed ransomware attacks in the 3 years that BlackFog has been collecting data with a total of 44 publicized attacks. This highlights the limitations of existing traditional cybersecurity solutions and the general lack of preparedness by most organizations.
• This month saw the largest increase in attacks on the Technology sector with an increase of over 29%. As in previous months we have also seen large increases in attacks on sectors with the lowest levels of protection in place, namely Healthcare, Education and Government with increases of 20%, 16% and 12% respectively.
• The most dramatic changes in ransomware variants this month were BlackCat with an increase of 47% and LockBit with an increase of 39%. This reflects the effectiveness of these variants and specifically the data destruction capabilities of BlackCat that we became aware of in September.
• While we continue to see PowerShell increase utilization to 85% we note this month that data exfiltration is now involved in 89% of all successful attacks.

Today’s full report can be found here: https://privacy.blackfog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/BlackFogRansomwareReport-Oct-2022.pdf

BlackFog has today released the State of Ransomware Report for September 2022. 

BlackFog issues a monthly report accounting for cyberattacks within the last month, showing targeted industries and the current active threat groups. 

The key findings for the month of September below from Dr. Darren Williams, CEO and Founder, BlackFog:

• September represents the second highest month of the year with 33 reported ransomware attacks. Ransomware shows no signs of abating with this month representing the third highest number of attacks over the past 3 years.
• This month we have seen major increases in several ransomware variants. Hive attacks increased by over 50%, Vice Society by 43% and BlackCat 25%. These increases come at the same time that several variants have started experimenting with data destruction, most notably BlackCat.
• As in previous months we continue to see a focus on the least protected sectors of Healthcare, Education and Government with increases of 25%, 13% and 19% respectively. This month however we saw the largest increase in the Retail sector of 27%, as cyber criminals explore new targets with low investments in cybersecurity.
• PowerShell continues to be highly leveraged as an attack vector and is now used in 83% of all attacks.

The full report can be found here: https://privacy.blackfog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BlackFogRansomwareReport-Sep-2022.pdf

BlackFog has released the August State of Ransomware Report. You can read the report here. And I have commentary from Dr. Darren Williams, CEO and Founder of BlackFog:

     “August represents the second biggest month of ransomware attacks since we began recording ransomware attacks back in 2020. 

We continue to see increased attack rates in sectors with low levels of protection and aging infrastructure such Education and Government, with increases of 15% and 20% respectively. This month we also saw dramatic increases in Healthcare and Services sectors of 33% and 35% respectively as attackers look to broaden their targets.

Lockbit continued its dominance along with Conti at 14% and 16.5% respectively. The top 4 variants now contribute to 50% of all new attacks.

Lastly, this month we also saw that attacks leveraging the PowerShell for the first time hit 80%, a new record.”

I would give this report a read as it illustrates what those in on cybersecurity teams have to defend against.