BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 21
By Sadraddin Aghjayev - Trend:
A wave of ransomware (malware that encrypts data) will significantly affect Russian business and enter the CIS in 2021, Trend reports citing the report of Russian Group-IB company.
Group-IB is a leading Russian developer of solutions for detecting and preventing cyber-attacks, detecting fraud and protecting intellectual property on the Internet.
According to the report, the number of cyber incidents in the first half of 2021 increased by almost 150 percent compared to the same period of 2020.
“In 2020, this indicator also grew, but more moderately (by 40 percent compared to 2019),” the report said.
“Since the beginning of 2021, 40 percent of cyber-attacks on Russian critical infrastructure have been carried out by "classic" cybercriminals, and 60 percent by pro-state players. In addition, in the first 5 months of 2021, the number of ransomware attacks against industrial companies already approached 70 percent of the total number of such attacks for the entire 2020,” the report reads.
“Consequently, hackers work for other countries and their pro-government structures. They are also often referred to as APTs (Advanced Persistent Threats),” the report says.
“More than 70 large ART groups are active in the world. At the same time, four to five new ones appear annually. Most of the APT groups are in China, North Korea, and Iran,” the report said.
“Information about government-funded hackers is based on a combination of several factors: such groups attack the critical infrastructure of the state, this includes industry, government agencies or research companies. In addition, the goal of the cyber-attack on APT is not ransom, but cyber-espionage or disruption of the functioning of the organization,” the report says.
“Cybercriminals use known vulnerabilities on the network perimeter to distribute malicious software. Cybercriminals most often get access to the networks of industrial companies on illicit forums,” the report added.
Group-IB is a global threat hunting and adversary-centric cyber intelligence company that specializes in investigating and preventing hi-tech cybercrimes. Group-IB’s flagship products have been named one of the best in a class by Gartner, Forrester, IDC, Frost & Sullivan, and KuppingerCole Analysts AG.
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