Ransomware groups have generated so much damage that the United States Federal government has made it a top priority to thwart such efforts including, hosting a major international summit on the topic, setting up a ransomware task force and repeatedly urging organizations to improve their cyber resilience.

Kroll has observed an uptick in actors offering network access on the dark web, particularly in the wake of recent disruptions to the ransomware-as-a-service (RAAS) ecosphere such as the ban on ransomware discussions in notorious underground criminal forums.

Nearly 80 per cent of all ransomware attacks in the first half of 2021 involved the threat of leaking exfiltrated data. Exfiltration is a popular pressure tactic as it introduces the threat to publish stolen sensitive data to a threat actor extortion website if a ransom payment is not received. Our team currently tracks over 40 threat actor extortion websites, with new sites belonging to new ransomware groups emerging each week.

Microsoft 365 (M365) has quickly become one of the most utilized email platforms and, thanks to a variety of productivity and communication applications deeply embedded in enterprise processes, it’s also a popular target for cyber criminals. Microsoft certainly understands that and has enabled extensive security mechanisms for M365, including multifactor authentication (MFA), which requires users to present more than one form of authentication before login.

On July 14, 2021, WooCommerce issued an emergency patch for a critical vulnerability allowing an unauthenticated attacker to access arbitrary data in an online store’s database. WooCommerce is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms in the world and is installed on over five million websites. Additionally, the WooCommerce Blocks feature plugin, which is installed on more than 200,000 sites, was affected by the vulnerability and was patched at the same time.

Kroll experts have noticed an increase in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks by cybercriminals seeking to turn a profit in two distinct incident types. First, many ransomware operators are now threatening and conducting DDoS attacks as an additional pressure tactic during the ransom negotiation process. Second, also known as ransom denial of service (RDoS), attackers threaten DDoS attacks that will take down an organization’s public-facing services unless a ransom is paid.

On the afternoon of July 2, 2021, Kaseya reported that it had been impacted by a ransomware attack affecting its Virtual System Administrator (VSA) product and advised users to shut down VSA servers immediately. Initial reporting indicates this was a well-orchestrated supply chain attack impacting about 60 managed services providers (MSPs) and up to 1,500 client organizations by leveraging a zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2021-30116).

The recent slate of breaches and regulatory actions has prompted many companies who had been doing the minimum in terms of proactive cyber risk management to rethink their approach. In the U.S., new regulations are emerging (for states like Virginia, Colorado, Massachusetts and many others), and existing regulators are increasing their enforcement, as we’ve seen by the NY Dept of Financial Services (NYDFS) and the SEC.

Phishing schemes are always evolving. This past year, email thread hijacking took phishing to new depths of subterfuge as criminals hid in plain sight within existing conversations. But no matter how well cybercriminals have refined their messaging or counterfeited legitimate logos and branding, the one constant has always been their delivery method: email. Until now. Online chat services have become a new target for cybercriminals to introduce documents loaded with malware into organizations.

Industries most impacted in 2019 continued to be hard hit in both 2020 and so far in 2021, including healthcare, education and financial services. However, the greatest percentage increases occurred in industries that had been generally spared in 2019. The overall implication is that data attacks became broader and deeper during the pandemic, a trend that continues during the recovery.