Nearly half (43%) of attacks from ransomware that occurred in 2022 began with the exploitation of applications. Compromising corporate accounts, as well as opening malicious e-mail messages, were also part of the sum of factors that enabled cybercriminals to initiate attacks with this type of threat, representing respectively 24% and 12% of the identified vectors.
The information is from the “IT Security Economics” report, annually released by the cybersecurity company Kaspersky and which analyzed data throughout 2022. The survey considered a total of 3.230 respondents, from companies of different sizes in 26 countries in the markets where Kaspersky operates.
The survey also points out that ransomware attacks are still rife and can hit any company at any time: last year, more than 40% of companies faced at least one ransomware attack.
On average, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) had to shell out over USD 5 to rescue information, while large corporations paid around USD 60 in ransom.
Kaspersky analysts identified that the main objective of scammers with ransomware attacks was not extortion or data encryption, but mining personal data, intellectual property and other sensitive information – whose sale value in the illicit market represents high gains for criminals .
The issue of user education is especially important, because many of the attacks start with a lack of human attention, or high-risk behavior – such as the repeated use of combinations in different online services, as well as weak passwords that can be quickly cracked.
Lack of knowledge can also lead to the lack of use of tools that can increase security, such as the use of secondary validations. Likewise, educating about current threats and ways to protect yourself also helps to shield threat access to networks.
