Ransomware Payments Increase by a Massive 60% as Email Phishing Rises in Frequency as Primary Attack Vector

The newest ransomware data paints a pretty bleak picture for organizations with “big game” attacks and six- and seven-figure ransom demands becoming the norm.

We’d all like to see ransomware attacks stopped completely, but the latest data from ransomware incident response vendor Coveware’s Q2 2020 Ransomware Marketplace Report shows that ransomware attacks are growing in sophistication, scope, effectiveness, and cost.

According to the report:

• The average ransom payment has jumped form $111K in Q1 to $178K in Q2
• The median company size has steadily increased from 25 in 2018 to 100 in Q2 and continues to increase
• “Big Game” variants like Maze targeted much larger companies, averaging over 16K employees
• The top 3 ransomware players were only responsible for 30% of attacks in Q2, highlighting that many new variants are gaining steam

This growth in ransom payment size, along with increases in the average victim organization size is cause for concern. According to the report, email phishing was the top initial attack vector in companies over 100 employees and is the primary attack vector for Maze ransomware attacks. This demonstrates that organizations either don’t have ample security solutions in place to stop malicious emails from reaching a user’s Inbox, or the security solutions simply aren’t keeping up with the evolving tactics used by ransomware gangs.

Organizations can’t afford the expense and remediation aftermath of these attacks, so it’s imperative to put an additional layer of security in place over the existing solutions. By including the user that has undergone Security Awareness Training as an additional layer, organizations are better prepared to stop all phishing-based cyberattacks because the user functions with a mindset that includes cybersecurity vigilance.