Despite positive Covid-19 vaccine trials heralding a light at the end of the tunnel for the Covid-19 pandemic, the cybersecurity pandemic continues unabated. In its 2020 Cyberthreats Report, global cyber protection leader Acronis sees the new year bringing aggressive cybercrime activity as criminals switch attacks from data encryption to data exfiltration.
The report drew on data collected by a global network of Acronis Cyber Protection Operations Centers (CPOCs), which monitor and research cyberthreats around the clock. Acronis also collected Malware data from more than 100,000 unique endpoints worldwide running Acronis Cyber Protect.
The report reflected that cyberattack frequency grew with the onset of Covid-19. Acronis’ report found that 31% of global companies faced daily cyberattacks in 2020, with this number set to increase in 2021. Ransomware continues to be the leading threat, with Maze ransomware accounting for nearly half of all known cases in 2020.
But bad actors are increasingly adopting their modus operandi to maximise financial gain. Acronis found that more than 1000 companies globally had their data leaked after a ransomware attack in 2021, highlighting a shift from data encryption to exfiltration.
More than taking ransoms to decrypt infected data, cyberattackers are increasingly stealing proprietary or embarrassing data and “extorting” victims by threatening to release this data if they are not paid.
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“More than any year in recent memory, 2020 posed a tremendous number of challenges to IT professionals, organizations, and the service providers who support them,” noted Stas Protassov, Acronis co-founder and Technology President. “What we’ve seen is how quickly bad actors are adjusting their attacks to the new IT landscape.”
The cybersecurity firm sees ransomware seeking new victims and becoming more automated in 2021. Acronis analysts see bad actors looking to attack targets with a higher return - for instance, targeting several companies in a single network as opposed to individual organisations. Cloud environments and organisations like managed service providers will therefore become more attractive targets in 2021.
Unfortunately, legacy cybersecurity solutions are struggling to keep up with these nefarious innovations. As attackers continue to use automation in their attacks, the number of malware samples will continue to climb.
“Blocking the new malware has rendered traditional antimalware solutions obsolete, as they cannot keep pace with the increased sophistication and frequency of new threats,” observed an Acronis press release, which noted that the average lifespan of a malware sample in 2020 was a mere 3.4 days.
Firms must therefore seek new cybersecurity solutions beyond simple standalone security and backup solutions. Candid Wüest. the VP of Cyber Protection Research at Acronis and co-author of the report, said that the main weakness of traditional cybersecurity is weak technologies and human error.
“Comprehensive cyber protection solutions offer the integration and automation that eliminate complexity, optimize performance, and streamline recovery when a successful attack inevitably occurs,” Wüest tells the media. The report notes that without prioritising such solutions, cyberattacks will remain frequent in spite of additional spending on cyber defence.
But companies and personal users can and should also maintain good cyber hygiene to avoid cyber attacks. Besides securing one’s passwords and work space, the report urges workers to use a VPN when working with business data and ensure that their cybersecurity solutions are working properly. Users should also take care not to click phishing links and patch their operating systems and applications.
Source: Acronis
