26% of Ransomware Attacks Target Corporate Businesses

New research from Kaspersky Lab has revealed that the number of ransomware attacks targeting businesses have risen to 26% this year.

An unprecedented outbreak of ransomware led by three major strains in WannaCry, NotPetya and BadRabbit has seen the proportion of ransomware attacks targeting businesses jump to 26.2% this year.

Senior malware analyst at Kaspersky Fedor Sinitsyn stated:

The headline attacks of 2017 are an extreme example of growing criminal interest in corporate targets. We spotted this trend in 2016, it has accelerated throughout 2017, and shows no signs of slowing down.

Compellingly, the number of new malware families discovered by Kaspersky Labs dropped from 62 last year to just 38 in 2017. It is the mark of an evolving ransomware landscape, where cybercriminals are increasingly modifying existing strains to bypass security firms’ filters. The number of mods has swelled from 54.000 to 96,000 this year.

Ransomware remains among the most serious threats to organizations, with over two-thirds of those struck by ransomware claiming to have lost a “significant” amount or even all of their data. Those that managed to decrypt and recover their data (29%) also said they lost a “significant” number of files. While a third (3^%) ignored the advice of police and security experts to pay the ransom, one in six of those who paid never managed to require their data.

Sinistyn added:

Business victims are remarkably vulnerable, can be charged a higher ransom than individuals and are often willing to pay up in order to keep the business operational. New business-focused infection vectors, such as through remote desktop systems are not surprisingly also on the rise.

Tellingly, ransomware attacks are also having a longer-lasting impact on victim organizations. Over a third (34%) claimed it took a week or longer to recover from ransomware attacks, as opposed to 29% in 2016.

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