29 Sep Security Breach – 29 Sep 2023
There is a warning about increasing ransomware activity. This warning comes as researchers warn that insurance claims from ransomware attacks are rising at an alarming rate. A new report by cyber insurer Coalition showed ransomware has been hitting businesses with greater frequency and severity than in previous years. The insurer noted that the extortionists’ demanded ransoms have also risen, making an already expensive ransomware attack even worse. The average ransom demand was $1.62 million, a 47% increase over the previous six months and a 74% increase over the past year.
Ransomware can do major damage to businesses fast. By 2031, a ransomware attack will strike a business every two seconds with an estimated annual cost of $265 billion in damage. For most IT professionals, ransomware is a dreadful prospect. Unfortunately, it’s a prospect that far too many businesses are facing these days. As the pace of attacks grows, experts say that ransomware gangs’ tactics are evolving, and officials are warning about growing threats from ransomware groups.
A successful ransomware attack on an organisation can have many unpleasant consequences for that company, including putting it out of business. Ransomware operations are expected to achieve their second-highest profits ever by year-end, with at least $449.1 million already extorted from attacks around the world during the first six months of 2023. Just like any other cyberattack, a company will incur an expensive incident response and recovery operation.
Recent Breaches
Australia – Pizza Hut Australia – Fast Food Chain
Exploit: Hacking
Risk to Business: Moderate: Pizza Hut has informed Australian consumers that it has experienced a data breach that impacts 193,000 customers. The company said that bad actors gained access to its customer database, including names, delivery address and instructions, email addresses and contact numbers. For registered accounts, the cybercriminals may have accessed encrypted credit card numbers and encrypted passwords. Pizza Hut said that its operations had not been affected by the hack. The breach has been reported to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and remains under investigation.
New Zealand – Auckland University of Technology – Institution of Higher Learning
Exploit: Ransomware
Risk to Business: Severe: New Zealand’s third-largest university has experienced a cyberattack. The University said that bad actors were able to gain access to the school’s IT environment. The Monti ransomware group has added the university to its dark web leak site. The group says that they snatched 60GB of data from New Zealand’s third-largest university, giving them a deadline of October 9 to pay an undisclosed ransom.
Talk to a TCT team member today about implementing cyber security and phishing training plan for your employees.
Robert Brown
29/09/2023
Related Articles:
Ways to Prevent Cloud Breaches
Data backup is not enough anymore