Ransomware as a Service, Today's Threat

Ransomware as a Service, Today's Threat

Ransomware as a Service, Today's Threat

Since a while ago ransomware has become the attacking method hackers prefer, even to the point of being available as a service, making things easier for cybercriminals.

Cristina Cueto

09/09/2021

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For the last decades, we've seen how news abut ransomware attacks became more frequent, to the point of becoming one of the main threats in cybersecurity, and a problem for companies that are not properly prepared to face it.

For the last two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has made actions sush as e-commerce, e-learning or remote working become more frequent. This has entailed, on the one hand, advantages for the users but on the other hand, it has opened new opportunities for cybercriminals who have seen how their tasks became easier. This, together with the increase that always takes place in summer, meant thaf for the last couple of months the growth of this type of attacks was even higher. Only for the second term of 2021, ransomware meant 46% of all cyberattacks, according to Cisco Talos.

As detailed by the expert in cybersecurity at Uniway, ransomware attacks may unleash dramatic consequences and that's why it is convenient, if you become a victim to one of them, to stay clam and cool-headed and hand the situation to your company's CIO.

What is the way in for a Ransomware?

One of the most frequent accesses is email. It is not weird for workers to get used to connecting to business email from different access points, usually not trustworthy, becoming an easy targets for cybercriminals.

On the other hand, there is the type of device that you use. It's not the same using business devices, which usually have important security systems, than using a personal terminal, that, although it may have an antivirus program installed, it won't have the same security, particularly when we talk about mobile terminals, since according to experts, 4 out of 10 mobile devices may be subject to cyberattacks.

The Backup as a Service model allows hiring services through the cloud in a trustworthy way and for a reasonable price

As explained by CheckPoint in their report "Mobile Security Report 2021", 97% of the companies has suffered mobile threats for the last year and 46% of the companies has cases of malicious downloads that put their systems at risk.

In addition, it is worth highlighting that another of the situations that favors attacks is poor staff training. It's true that increasingly more companies and employees start worring conciously about such an important element as cybersecurity, however, there's a long way to go and lots of work to do yet. According to PwC, the average level on cybersecurity in Spain barely reaches a C, with 2,8 out of 5 and 86% of the Spanish companies have yet the task of implementing cybersecurity culture among their staff.

Affected sectors

When analizing the affected sectors by ransomware attacks, Cisco Talos reports show that there's a wide range of target sectors. Sectors like telecommunications companies, education and gubernamental institutions (as we have seen in the last couple of months with the situations of the UCLM or the Working Ministry), transport and of course in the face of a situation such as the one we have been living for the last few years, the health sector, which has been one of the most affected ones in these turbulent times we're going through.

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When traditional backup is not enough

Within the growth we're seeing in ransomware attacks, it is outstanding the development of what is called "Ransomware as a service". We live in a time where we have services available for almost everything we want, whether dinner delivery, an amazon order or even, why not, a cyberattack.

The deep web is indeed a dark and deep place where you may find the most unbelievable offers. Therefore now it is possible to hire a ransomware attack "service" through the web easily and it might be cheaper than what you may think.

In the face of this, companies start being aware of the fact that traditional backup services are not enough and it is necessary to take a step further.

Here is where Backup as a Service comes into play, a model that allows hiring backup and recovery services based on the cloud and whose costs are even lower, since when hiring an external or third-party solution, you save in aspects such as maintenance or installation costs. All of that, together with the advantage that management is simplified, these solutions allow companies to manage recovery more easily thanks to the different levels, which make several data backups in different locations.

Like that, and proving in addition that cloud backups are safe and trustworthy, companies have ahead of them a useful and practical solution to keep your information safe.