On December 12th, 2022, a cyberattack rendered critical services unavailable in the Swedish municipalities of Borgholm and Mörbylånga. The attack’s exact nature remains undisclosed, but it seems to be part of a global trend of ransomware attacks.
The Royal Mail discovered a cyber incident on January 10th that impacted delivery and collection services throughout the UK. More recently, on February 8th, the city of Oakland declared a local state of emergency after a ransomware attack forced the city to take all of its IT systems offline.
Ransomware is malicious software that encrypts a company’s data and prevents access until a ransom is paid and a decryptor is released.
In 2021, ransomware attacks surged by 105% worldwide, totaling 623.3 million attacks compared to the previous year. The majority of these targeted attacks have been increasing since remote and hybrid work became more prevalent.
While the volume of ransomware attacks decreased by 23% in 2022, some organizations believe this suggests that their cybersecurity measures are preventing these crimes. However, these attacks are developing into new forms, with many ransomware groups now utilizing the double-extortion model to exert more pressure for ransom payments by threatening to expose compromised data.
In 2021, the average ransomware payment was $570,000, representing a significant increase from $312,000 in 2020 and $115,000 in 2019. Ransom prices tend to increase when attackers target high-profile individuals and entities.
During the Royal Mail ransomware incident, the LockBit hacker demanded $80 million in exchange for decrypting the files, claiming that it was equivalent to 0.5% of the company’s revenue.
