Ransomware Evolves, What is a Cyber Threat? In the digital era like today, almost everyone certainly spends their time surfing the internet.
The impact of the unfinished Covid-19 pandemic has forced most businesses and services to switch from offline to online.
The large number of users who surf and carry out activities on the internet has spawned many attacks carried out by individuals and irresponsible parties.
We need to be aware of this and be careful when accessing it. As a result, it is important to get strong disaster management tools like office backup for all office data.
The Most Serious Cyber Threat – Ransomware In 2023
A cyber threat or cyber threat is a malicious act that attempts to damage or steal data or disrupt computer networks and systems.
The most common cyber threats include computer viruses, software vulnerabilities, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, and social engineering techniques, such as phishing.
Even “offline” events such as natural disasters can be considered cyber threats, as they put systems and data at risk.
The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly changed the cyber threat landscape. Working from anywhere has become the new normal, and 92 percent of global organizations adopted new technology this year to facilitate the shift to remote operations.
While this has created many new opportunities for vendors, it has also highlighted the various security and privacy risks associated with remote work.
Tools That Enable Collaboration and Remote Access to Internal Company
Servers are ripe targets for cybercriminals. Adopting new technologies in a rush and budget and IT staff constraints have resulted in many companies adopting new technologies without properly checking and configuring their new solutions.
As a result, cyberattacks against these targets are often successful.
The Sophos 2022 Threat Report, in its recently published report on threats and chaos trends in the internet (cyber) world, emphasizes that Ransomware is the most serious threat that can destabilize the internet world in the future.
The target of the attack is not only aimed at large companies in the field of technology, but also innovative visionaries and industry leaders in the digital sector around the world.
But it also targets government institutions, academia, and health services. This attack disrupted the internet (cyber) world with the existence of devices affected by malware, ransomware, cyber miners, data hacking, spyware, manipulating website users, and other cyber attacks.
The results of the analysis conducted by the Sophos 2022 Threat Report stated that in 2023 the growing existence of ransomware will become a very serious and dangerous threat because it uses a different method from previous attacks which used the “as a service” method.
Meanwhile, pre-prepared cyber threats will continue to adapt to distribute and deliver ransomware to their targets, including loaders, droppers, and other malware commodities such as Initial Access Brokers, spam, and adware.
Even in the analysis, it is said that the ransomware attackers are very sophisticated in trying to obtain ransom (money) from their targets.
In response to this, Sophos published a guideline containing 10 tactics when experiencing pressure such as data theft and exposure, threatening phone calls, attacks on distributed denial of service (DDoS), and others.
Cryptocurrency is also expected to continue to trigger cybercrime, such as ransomware and dangerous crypto mining.
RaaS developers then create sophisticated code and determine the best way to get ransom payments from their victims.
This situation certainly magnifies the cyber threat landscape and common threats, such as loaders, droppers and Initial Broker Access already exist and have caused troubling disruptions long before ransomware existed.
According to Sophos lead researcher Chester Wisniewski, ransomware can thrive due to its ability to adapt and innovate.
Ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) offerings in previous years had contributed greatly to bringing ransomware within reach of attackers.
Meanwhile, according to a report from insurance provider Cyber Coalition, ransomware is responsible for 41% of all cyber insurance claims this year.
Stay Safe Amid Cyber Ransomware Threats
With these challenges ahead, businesses or companies, and government agencies need to invest in finding solutions that can face threats head-on, especially alert advisories tools and provide comprehensive internet protection.
Ongoing cyber threats can be stopped, but will not be able to recover compromised data. Backup IT staff will not automatically be aware of these threats.
Meanwhile, data can be recovered slowly if the data is not successfully compromised. Security patches to fix vulnerabilities in popular software are released frequently, but they are insignificant if they are not enabled across your workloads promptly.
Addressing this problem, Acronis, a cyber protection company recommends a system like Acronis Cyber Protect which combines data backup, anti-malware, RMM, vulnerability assessment, and patch management capabilities into one tool.
This level of integration enables optimal performance, eliminates compatibility issues, and ensures fast automatic recovery in the event of a breach.
