Recently, McAfee released data related to ransomware campaigns. The report noted that the creation of new ransomware campaigns are decreasing with the passage of time, but the total ransomware cases were still rising sharply. According to the report, there has been a rise in the numbers— more than 55 percent correspond to the amount of ransomware samples.
The report also singled-out the involvement of different variants. These variants emerged from popular ransomware families and were modernized with the latest tools infection tools. As their original versions became ineffective and ransomware removal was made easier through decryption tools and anti-ransomware solutions, the need for these variants heightened that rendered the previous solutions as useless.
Among the ransomware that generated the largest number of variants included Scarab Ransomware. This Ransomware reached its peak from May to August in 2018. Ransomware removal experts also observed that the recent influx of Scarab variants amount to more than 50 percent of the family’s variants. Since the digital invasion of NotPetya and WannaCry ransomware, ransomware cases have seen a rise of 151 percent.
McAfee Senior Principal Engineer – Christian Beek – offered his insights on the correlation of WannaCry and NotPetya to the ransomware campaigns in 2018. Mr. Beek stated that NotPetya and WannaCry introduced new hacking tactics and became a case study for cybercriminals. These techniques helped other cybercriminal groups to try out new methods for exploiting vulnerability of businesses and distributing their ransomware on a larger scale.
Mr. Beek also expressed surprise over the irresponsibility of businesses. He said that some vulnerabilities existed in the organizations even before 2015. This resulted in businesses being a soft target. With decryption tools and patches available for all these ransomware, companies could have evaded such attacks and successfully saved themselves through ransomware removal tools.
