There are now over 250 different ransomware families currently operational worldwide
No industry is immune to ransomware attacks, research claims
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In its latest monthly threat debrief, security vendorBitdefenderhas shared that its researchers have now identified 250 differentransomwarefamilies, some more notorious and active than others.
The report is based on the analysis of 19.8 millionmalwaredetections during the month of August 2021.
“To give you some idea of the scale, our Labs operations discover 400+ new threats each minute and validate 30 billion threat queries daily,” shares Bitdefender.
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Compiled amidst thehiatus of REvil, the report notes that the top three ransomware families in August, namely WannaCryptor, Stop/DJVU, and Phobo, account for over 60% of all detections.
Global threat
Bitdefender tracked ransomware incidents from all over the world with detections in August from 174 countries.
The United States emerged as the favorite target accounting for 30% of all attacks, with India in the runners-up spot attracting 17% of all campaigns, closely followed by Brazil at 15%.
Of all the detections, almost 40% of the campaigns have been assigned to specific industries. Over half of these campaigns (51%) have targeted the telecommunications services sector.
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Interestingly, while campaigns against utilities, such as the one againstColonial Pipelineindirectly impact a large number of people, in the grander scheme of things they only make up a mere 1% of all the attacks.
“Adversaries sometimes take a break, but they often re-emerge with an improved toolkit utilizing a new name. In the case of REvil, we expect to see more targeted attacks,” the researchers conclude.
With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’sTechRadar Pro’sexpert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.
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