Latest report says Ransomware and Business Email Compromise Attacks are causing 70% of the cyberattacks we see today

It has been brought to attention that 70% of the cyberattacks and scams comprise compromised business emails and ransomware. Organizations need to know how to safeguard their data and remove security risks.

Palo Alto Networks report includes data across 600 incidents where they’ve highlighted the most common methods and trends. This is where we found out that 70% of the scams were business email compromises and ransomware.

Moreover, the report also shows that ransom demands have been increasing at an exponential rate compared to the past. They found out that $30 million have been asked as ransom from the culprits, whereas they were even paid $8 million to keep going.

It was reported that simple methods of social engineering are enough to threaten and take advantage of victims across business email compromise scams. Their main goal seems to be to obtain the organization or company’s credentials and use them to withdraw money into their accounts. Once the credentials of the organization have been compromised, it usually takes 38 days for the business email compromise attacks to be finished and the net revenue stolen was recorded at $286,000.

Moreover, the report also shows that the highest demands made by ransomware attacks were in the real estate and finance industries. Furthermore, the top three successful means through which scams were committed were phishing, open source software vulnerabilities, and remote desktop protocols.

Wendi Whitmore, head of unit 42 at Palo Alto Network says that online cybercrimes are getting more and more popular by the passing day. This is only inviting more people to get their hands dirty by performing these kinds of scams where in most cases, the returns are worth more than the investment. Moreover, the influx of hacker hiring services being made popular on the dark web has caused an even greater amount of people to get scammed daily.

With this report, we’ve come to know many things about the different cybercrimes and threats that are circulating online. This is why security awareness training should be mandatory for the interest of all organizations. This enables the employees of a firm to spot any suspicious activity that may harm themselves or the organization where they belong.

Read next: Median Ransomware Payments Fall by 51% as Victims Refuse to Pay Hackers
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