Cybercrime Tactics and Techniques: Ransomware Retrospective

This whitepaper looks at global consumer and business detections, the attack methods used by cybercriminals used to victimize as well as regional threat analysis, the most heavilyattacked countries, and even the top US states. 

Over the last year, we’ve witnessed an almost constant increase in business detections of ransomware, rising a shocking 365 percent from Q2 2018 to Q2 2019. Meanwhile, consumer detections of ransomware have been on the decline, decreasing by 12 percent year over year and 25 percent quarter over quarter. The reason behind this shift: Cybercriminals are searching for higher returns on their investment, and they can reap serious benefits from ransoming organizations over individuals, who might yield, at best, a few personal files that could be used for extortion or identity theft.

Today’s ransomware doubles down on previous ransomware techniques by circumventing earlier protections that were developed in 2017 to stop them in their tracks. Modern ransomware finds new ways onto the network, spreads instantly, sneaks past the programs of many cybersecurity vendors, and achieves persistence.