Ransomware Attempt Volume Touching Over 300 Million, Sets Record

A new investigation report has been published by SonicWall network security organization in which it stated that ransomware attacks have been increased rampantly in the first half of 2021, with 304.7 million attempted attacks observed by the organization. 

SonicWall researchers’ team has discovered several attempted ransomware attacks in both April and May, however, the record of these two months was knockdown by June, which recorded 78.4 million attempted ransomware attacks. 

According to the study, the total figure of ransomware attacks that has been observed by SonicWall in the first half of 2021 has broken the record of 2020’s total attempts. 

“Even if we don’t record a single ransomware attempt in the entire second half (which is irrationally optimistic), 2021 will already go down as the worst year for ransomware SonicWall has ever recorded,” the report read.

According to the 2021 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report, some world’s developed counties including the US, the UK, Germany, South Africa, and Brazil topped the list of countries most hard hit by ransomware in the first half of 2021. 

This report has also mentioned the names of some of the US districts that have been impacted more was Florida, which saw 111.1 million ransomware attempts, New York had 26.4 million, Idaho saw 20.5 million, and Rhode Island, as well as Louisiana, has to face nearly 9 million ransomware attacks attempts. 

Furthermore, the report touched upon what these ransomware attacks are doing with organizations’ systems. The network collects malware and IP-sensitive credentials from tens of thousands of firewalls and email security devices from all over the world. 

As per the report, in 2021, the most common targets are important governmental organizations such as financial institutions, defense, and information broadcasting institutions; Governments face more attacks than any other industry each month. By the month of June, government customers saw 10 times as many ransomware attempts and an overall spike of 917%. 

Customers in the education field have been found to be largely targeted by ransomware attempts, with an increase of 615%. SonicWall Capture Labs threat researchers have found an increased risk of ransomware attacks across healthcare (594%), as well as retail (264%) organizations.

According to data from SonicWall’s Capture Labs, the three ransomware groups including Ryuk, Cerber, and SamSam are alone responsible for 64% of all attempted ransomware attacks. Ryuk attempted 93.9 million attacks, however, a new hype has been seen in 2020, tripling Ryuk attempts. 

On the other hand, Cerber attempted 52.5 million ransomware attacks in 2021 while SamSam group has increased its attempts by 49.7 in 2021, from last year’s 15.7 million attempts.