Detection of ransomware against businesses jumped by 81% in Singapore and 263% in Asia Pacific between the second quarter of 2019 and that of 2018.
A special edition of Malwarebytes’ quarterly cybercrime techniques and tactics report also shows that in the second quarter this year, consumer detections were dipped below business detections of ransomware for the first time, an expression of lost interest from cybercriminals on individual targets as they look to higher value opportunities.
In the second half of 2019, ransomware is expected to continue to evolve through manual and blended attacks with worm-like functionality, as well as more paired attacks with other malware families.
“This year we have noticed ransomware making more headlines than ever before as a resurgence in ransomware turned its sights to large, ill-prepared public and private organisations with easy to exploit vulnerabilities such as cities, non-profits and educational institutions,” said Adam Kujawa, director of Malwarebytes Labs.
“Our critical infrastructure needs to adapt and arm themselves against these threats as they continue to be targets of cybercriminals, causing great distress to all the people who depend on public services and trust these entities to protect their personal information,” Kujawa said.
The report also finds that from 2018 to 2019, there was a 235% increase in threats aimed at organisations from enterprises to small businesses, with ransomware as a major contributor.
GandCrab is the most prevalent type of ransomware globally, with Rapid and Locky coming in a close second in Asia Pacific.
Trojans remain the most common threat among the Asia Pacific region, for both businesses and consumers, followed by Adware.
Top ransomware families overall include: GandCrab, Ryuk, Troldesh, Rapid and Locky. For business detections there was a constant increase in detections of ransomware families, particularly in Ryuk and Phobos.
Ryuk detections increased by 88% in the second quarter compared to the first quarter, while Phobos exploded 940%.
