UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has released a press update stating that it has witnessed a surge in ransomware attacks from Russia over the last year. The British Cybersecurity Agency adds it has witnessed a record number of 777 cyber incidents throughout 2020, with most targeting the servers related to Corona virus vaccine research & development.
Paul Chichester, the director of operations, opened his mind and said that the file encrypting malware has dominated a significant portion of attacks in this year, citing Russian speaking cyber crooks targeting London Borough of Hackney and the celebrity jeweler GRAFF this year.
Often such attacks are proving pretty expensive as millions of dollars or pounds are being demanded as ransom to free up the database from encryption added Mr. Chichester.
Coming to another study made by Cybereason, organizations are becoming super vulnerable to ransomware attacks as they are mostly being targeted during weekends and in holiday season.
In a survey that included responses from over 500 UK security professionals, 37% of them agreed they do not have a disaster recovery plan in place if their network gets targeted by ransomware spreading criminals on weekends and holidays.
Cybereason researchers say that its high time businesses take adequate steps to improve their cybersecurity posture meant to protect their critical assets. Otherwise, it’s hard to predict the actual time when the hackers will target a network as most of the IT staff will be busy during the holiday season.
