A study on Tuesday revealed that the Indian manufacturing sector stood as the most targeted industry for ransomware extortion in 2023.
The study by Palo Alto Networks said on a global level a 49 per cent YoY increase was observed in multi-extortion ransomware attacks from 2022 to 2023 and before 2023 LockBit ransomware remained the most active attack impacting about 928 organisations accounting for 23 per cent of the total.
Additionally, for the year 2023, it stated at least 25 new ransomware leak sites were detected of which Akira led the way.
Pointing at the emerging threats the study highlighted more sophisticated threat actors are gaining initial access differently with a discernible rise in the exploitation of software and API vulnerabilities. Consequently, exploiting such vulnerabilities accounted for 38.60 per cent of the initial access points in 2023, up from 28.20 per cent in 2022.
Sharing more detail on the threat actors the study stressed in about 93 per cent of incidents, threat actors took data indiscriminately rather than searching for specific data. This is up from 2022 when 81 per cent of cases involved non-targeted data theft. In 2021, it was even lower at 67 per cent. The surge points to a growing trend among cybercriminals who seem to be casting a wider net, gathering any data they can access rather than expending effort to locate and extract particular datasets.
Interestingly, the study reported while the rate of harassment and other extortion tactics w.r.t. Ransomware has remained steady over the past few years, the rate of harassment in cases where payments were made has jumped 27 times more since 2021.
In a statement Huzefa Motiwala, Director, Systems Engineering, India and SAARC, said “While the surge in ransomware incidents is concerning, there are glimmers of hope amidst the challenges. The data reveals a promising shift in organisations’ response strategies, with a notable increase in median ransom demands countered by a decrease in median payouts.”
He added since organisations are more willing to call in Incident response teams, threat actors are happy to take the path of least resistance. Which, in most scenarios, is to grab what they can get, and move on.
Furthermore, the study reflected on the higher demands, and lower payouts in 2023. It said median ransom demands increased from USD 650,000 to USD 695,000 (3 per cent) but median payouts decreased from USD 350,000 to USD 237,500 (32 per cent). This can be potentially attributed to organisations calling in incident response teams with negotiation capabilities (which fewer did in the past).
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