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Latest report from Acronis has highlighted the fact that ransomware will cause damages of USD 30 billion globally, which makes it the number one threat to organisations globally including government, healthcare and other critical organisations.

Ransomware will cause damages of USD 30 billion globally according to a latest report. It will be the top threat to large and medium-sized businesses, including government organisations. Latest report from Acronis has highlighted the fact that ransomware will cause damages of USD 30 billion globally, which makes it the number one threat to organisations globally including government, healthcare and other critical organisations.

During the first half of 2022, the number of groups operating for ransomware have declined but few new ones appeared during the first half of the year, those that are operating have done significant damage already. Conti and LockBit 2.0 were behind 58 per cent of all publicly reported ransomware incidents in Q1 2022.

Numbers from the report suggest that the Conti ransomware gang has earned USD 2.7 billion in cryptocurrency in only two years, and in January 2022, the statistics show over 1,000 victims and victim payouts exceeding USD 150 million.

In fact, the threat from the gang is becoming a big enough concern to prompt the U.S. Department of State to offer up to USD 15 million for information that helps identify and locate leadership and co-conspirators of the Conti ransomware gang. Another big name of 2022 is the Lapsus$ gang, but let’s start with Conti’s recent “achievements.”  

Meanwhile, Lapsus$ stole 1 TB of data and leaked credentials of over 70,000 NVIDIA users. The same gang also stole 30 GB worth of T-Mobile’s source code. Even Microsoft and secure identity platform Okta have recently fell victim to the Lapsus$ gang. Microsoft had said that the group gained limited access to their systems; however, Okta has confirmed that nearly 375, or 2.5 per cent, of their customers may have had their data compromised in the attack, which has the potential to affect hundreds of companies.

The report says that there have been just 572 publicly mentioned ransomware compromises in Q2, a 3 per cent decline from Q1.

Credit: Acronis’ Mid-Year Cyberthreats Report

Speaking to BW Businessworld earlier this year on struggles of organisations in staying a step ahead of threat actors, Stanislav Protassov, co-founder and technology president, Acronis, said: “In physical conflicts, attacking is more costly than playing defence – in cyber conflicts the situation is reversed. Defenders have to make no mistakes and the attackers need to find just one.”

India’s share in the percentage of ransomware detections in Asia has come down from 5.9 per cent in Q1 to 4.2 per cent in Q2 2022. Similar trend was observed in Japan, which attracts the most ransomware attacks in Asia.