Top Ransomware Trends and Statistics to Watch Out for in 2024

Instances of ransomware have skyrocketed this year, rising by 13% compared to 2021, and show no signs of slowing down. Keeping this in mind, let’s examine the leading ransomware developments you should watch in 2024. What follows is an overview of the current status of ransomware, including its functionality in the present, potential future directions, and mental tactics you might employ to increase your chances of survival. In this article, we focused on ransomware trends, statistics, and more, such as ransomware facts.

This Is Where Ransomware Stands Now

Is there an increase in ransomware attacks? Let’s have a look at the statistics on ransomware. According to IDC, a third of all businesses worldwide have been hit by ransomware. Going into 2024, this pattern will continue; ransomware groups are becoming more sophisticated, and attacks are becoming more targeted.

Some sectors are more at risk than others, and the threat to essential services is growing. Government agencies “saw attacks involving ransomware against 14 of the 16 U.S. critical infrastructure sectors,” including finance, education, energy, and more, according to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

While ransomware gangs primarily encrypt victims’ files and demand a ransom, there has been a recent uptick in the use of other extortion techniques. In underground cyber markets, a newvendor typer has emerged: the first access broker. These brokers provide ransomware groups with initial access, which is access to a compromised machine on a specific network or within aparticularn enterprise. This saves time and effort that ransomware groups can put toward spreading laterally, enforcing the ransom, and negotiating with victims. Between 2020 and 2021, there was a 58% rise in the number of IPOs listed.

The aim of attacks has evolved from simply encrypting company data to also focusing on data exfiltration, as evidenced by the proliferation of ransomware groups and the subsequent evolution of the ransomware market. An assaulter can use the stolen information in one of two main ways: Extortion, where the attacker claims, “I’ve stolen your customer list and exfiltrated it to my infrastructure. If you don’t give me $200,000, I willo leak the information. Another option is selling your exfiltrated thdata directly, such as by offering a dump of user names and passwords on a dark web forum.

Since their start in 2019, double-extortion assaults, in which threat actors keep your data for ransom and threaten to disclose it online, have been widespread. In 2022, Digital Shadows, a business that analyses threats, discovered eleven new extortion gangs that only focuses on data dumps. Double extortion is another trademark of Blackbyte.

Famous ransomware collectives (like rival, Conti, and others) are rebranding themselves to evade public scrutiny. KrebsonSecurity claims that criminals must constantly innovate to keep their businesses afloat in the cyber world. Pretending to die or retire so one can start over with a new identity is one of the oldest cons in the book. The purpose of this sort of deception is to confuse or divert the attention of law enforcement officials.

Cyber defense is dynamic, but so is cyber offense. The more safeguards we put in place and the more we can detect, the more these ransomware groups develop new tools to circumvent our safeguards.

There are, of course, new, inexperienced ransomware groups emerging every day as well. These newer gangs typically rely on pre-made attack kits and ransomware builders rather than being proactive and working at the cutting edge to stay up with or outsmart the defenders. They can get their hands on these tools in a few different ways, sometimes even through security researchers who hack into the networks ofsignificantr ransomware groups and leak their source code. These less-advanced communities can use these resources to play the role of their more-advanced counterparts.

2024 Ransomware Protection Tactics

Ransomware gangs continue to seek new members actively. These organizations always seek talented new developers and penetration testers to keep up with the ever-changing security landscape.

Employing several countermeasures can reduce the risk of ransomware attacks.

A Mental Shift Towards Prevention and Control

No matter how secure something is, it would be best if you always assumed it could be compromised. Although it is usually preferable to prevent a problem from occurring, sometimes it is more efficient to identify and stop an attack once it has begun.

The following methods among ransomware protection market trends are all appropriate for this strategy:

Consider the infection from the attacker’s vantage point at every stage. To be well prepared, visualize the actions you need to take (recon, lateral movement, etc.) when planning for an attack.

It’s essential to hold regular tabletops with all the departments in your company. Usingg attack simulation, you can often uncover vulnerabilities that might otherwise go undetected. Teams or individuals familiar with specific parts of the infrastructure but not typically thinking from an adversarial perspective can help discover and mitigate additional attack vectors. Think about the buried “domain knowledge” their viewpoints may bring.

Create an incident response playbook and practice it regularly. It’s crucial to get ready ahead of time. Run regular exercises on actual infrastructure to ensure your team is always ready for anything.

Learn your environment’s norms so you can spot changes immediately. It’s essential to have a firm grasp of the norms of your ecosystem to notice any deviations. If you want accurate metrics, you must look more profound than a simple host list and learn about the applications and remote servers your hosts communicate with. Too get the most out of your telemetry, it helps to establish a good baseline for as many inputs as possible.

Layered Security

Defense in depth necessitates a multi-pronged approach, with multiple lines of defense to prevent an attack from succeeding.You need a layered detection pipeline to effectively handle events in your environment. Simply gathering logs isinsufficientt; you must adopt an “assume breach” mentality and consider potential attack sources within your environment. That can guide your efforts in determining which detection pipelines are most important, for instance:

Methods of recording process activity

• Data logging for network traffic
• Registration of Authentication Attempts

The following topic is safeguarded; therefore,e let’s discuss those. These are the applications and programs you install in your system. Firewalls and email gateways are examples of active measures that can be implemented to reduce exposure to outside threats. Your detection pipelines may benefit from additional controls such as EDR.

Finally, the layered security architecture is another component of in-depth protection. Always think about the company’s overall security while implementing a new tool. Introducingf a new tool can open up previously unexploitable vulnerabilities in the system. The application could have flaws, or the vendor’s remote management features could open up a new attack vector. These potential avenues need to be taken into account. Typically, security teams will implement a “zero trust” policy to combat this issue.

Utilizing a Security Operations Platform

It is crucial to have both awareness and adaptability when protecting against ransomware.

Prevent further entry. If phishing attacks are getting through your organization’s email firewall, GreyMatter can help by automatically analyzing these attacks.
Put a stop to the epidemic before it spreads further. By keeping your EDR tools and threat intelligence capabilities in sync and up-to-date,

The reaction is predetermined and robotic. By analyzing the causes of past occurrences, automation plays can prevent similar ones from happening in the future. It can automatically quarantine hosts, destroy files, ban hashes, and block domains associated with spam and other malicious activity. You are maintainingg a constant watch. The system’s consolidated view simplifies the detection and response to hazards in your environment.