According to the report conducted by Unit42 for Palo Alto Network, the average amount of ransomware paid has been steadily increasing over the past year. In vain, cyberattackers are organizing themselves to increase the performance of their attacks.

It is not only the number of ransomware attacks that is increasing, but also the number of ransom payments. The recent Unit42 study “Ransomware Threat Report 2021” indicates that the amount paid by ransomware victims has increased from $115,124 in 2019 to $312,493 in 2020. The average ransom demand is higher, estimated at $947,344 in 2020. Unfortunately the comparison with 2019 is not feasible due to the absence of the amount for 2019.

Netwalker, Ragnarlocker, Nefilim, Darkside, Revil, Avaddon, Clop, Defray777 and Pay2key, which are the most widespread ransomware as a service, facilitate their expansion thanks to a well-honed community design and payment system.

The average amount of ransomware is increasing drastically, but the large sums requested are also increasing exponentially.

Cybercriminals are seeing things in a big way; for comparison, in 2019, the highest sum demanded was 15 million dollars, which has doubled in 2020, to reach 30 million dollars. Remember that ransom demanded does not mean paid.

The slider for the highest amounts paid is now up, from $5 million in 2019 to $10 million in 2020.

The Montagne Institute reports that ransomware is the most frequent threat of 2020, having the greatest impact on the production, reputation and finances of those impacted.

The increase in reports (+255% in 2020 versus 2019 according to ANSSI) and the incentive not to pay, unfortunately does not prevent the ability of cybercriminals to charge ransom.

In France, 3 companies have been severely impacted by ransomware. Altran and Sopra Steria have lost 20 million euros and 50 million euros respectively, while Saint-Gobain has lost 250 million euros as a result of ransomware.

These astronomical losses are more likely to be related to the loss of operations and turnover than to the cyber remediation itself.

The ceboxOs offers the possibility to use the workstation in Read-Only Mode, which allows the workstation to be free of viruses each time it is restarted, so that the performance of the workstation is not affected.

Together with ceBoxOS, you can now keep your IT equipment healthy and restart it at any time without any constraints.