Ransomware Targeting Business Users Increases to 26%

Research from Kaspersky Labs claims that the number of ransomware attacks targeting business users rose to 26%, with just over 4% targeting SMBs.

While these figures appear to represent a relatively small increase from the 22.6% of attacks aimed at business users in 2016, what’s important to note is that these figures didn’t include the three major campaigns we’ve seen in recent months: WannaCry, NotPetya, and BadRabbit.

The report found that the number of new malware families discovered by Kaspersky fell from 62 last year to just 38 this year. However, hackers appear to be looking to modify existing strains instead in order to bypass security filters, as the number of mods grew from 54,000 in 2016 to 96,000 this year alone.

Ransomware continues to present a serious threat to business users, with 65% of respondents admitting to having lost ‘significant’ amounts or even all of their data as a result of a ransomware attack. Even worse, 36% ignored the advice of law enforcement and the security community and gave in and paid the ransom, further perpetuating the lucrative ransomware market.  

2017 has brought us the likes of WannaCry, NotPetya, BadRabbit, Locky, Jigsaw, the list goes on and on and shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon. Ransomware attacks prove to be profitable for hackers and they will continue to perform these kinds of attacks as long as organizations give in and pay the ransom to these criminals.

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