"Average Ransomware Demands Surge by 518% in 2021"

The Unit 42 security consulting group released new results found during their research that show that the average ransomware demands surged by 518% in the first half of 2021 compared to 2020, while payments climbed by 82% in the same period.  The researchers revealed that the average demand from ransomware gangs in H1 2021 was $50m, representing a massive increase from $847,000 in 2020. They noted that the highest demand made of a single victim so far in 2021 was $50m, compared to $30m last year.  In addition, the average ransomware payment this year was a record $570,000, which compares to $312,000 last year. The researchers also found that the average payment in 2020 was 171% higher than in 2019, further highlighting how lucrative the use of ransomware has become during the past 18 months.  According to the researchers, the main factor in these increases was the use of new extortion approaches.   This included the rise of “quadruple extortion,” in which four extortion methods are used against a single victim: encryption, data theft, denial of service (DoS), and harassment.  The Unit 42 team also stated that they expect the ransomware crisis to worsen over the coming months and have observed threat actors “develop new approaches for making attacks more disruptive.” This includes encrypting hypervisors, which can corrupt multiple virtual instances running on a single server.  The researchers also predict that managed service providers will be increasingly targeted in the wake of the recent high-profile Kaseya attack.

Infosecurity reports: "Average Ransomware Demands Surge by 518% in 2021"