Ransomware is the biggest cybersecurity threat facing the world today, significantly impacting entire societies and economies – and the attacks are relentless, the head of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has warned.
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“Even with a war raging in Ukraine – the biggest global cyber threat we still face is ransomware. That should tell you something about the scale of the problem. Ransomware attacks are hitting hard and fast. They are evolving quickly, they are omnipotent. They are increasingly being offered by gangs as a service, lowering the bar for entry into cybercrime,” said Lindy Cameron, CEO of the NCSC in a speech at Tel Aviv Cyber Week.
He added that the NCSC has dealt with “nationally significant incidents” along with hundreds of general cyber incidents that “affect the UK more broadly every year”.
While she did not specify specific ransomware incident responses, Cameron warned that “these sophisticated attacks have the potential to significantly impact our societies and economies ” and hinted that if it were not for the work of NCSC incident responders, along with their industry and international counterparts , the attacks could have had a significant impact.
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Working alongside other law enforcement agencies, Cameron said the NCSC is working to understand the criminal system that helps drive ransomware attacks – and how the nature of ransomware gangs and the techniques they use to facilitate ransomware campaigns continue to evolve.
“We want to make ransomware an unprofitable and unattractive business,” said Cameron, who detailed how the NCSC’s Active Cyber Defense program has helped thwart cyberattacks targeting citizens.
This includes a takedown project that has removed millions of malicious URLs and the suspicious email, which has allowed the public to report more than 10.5 million suspicious emails, resulting in the removal of more than 76,000 online scams.
According to recently published data from cybersecurity firm WatchGuard, the volume of ransomware has increased significantly with the volume of activity detected in the first quarter of 2022 being more than three times that detected in the same period last year.
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The report suggests that the emergence of aggressive ransomware and extortion operations, including LAPSUS$ and BlackCat, are behind what is described as “an ever-growing ransomware and cyber-extortion threat landscape.”
Information source: zdnet.com
