Presently, RaaS (ransom as a service) and ransomware attacks are at an all time high, topping the list in cybersecurity community since the last few months, threat actors and hackers are constantly attacking businesses, corporate and emails for personal monetory gains. The BEC (Business Email Compromise), EAC (personal email account compromise) , scams have caused the most threat and impact, as per the cybersecurity reports.
FBI in its enquiry found that BEC and EAC accounts for a minimum $1.86 billion losses in 2020, that too in the US region only, a 5% jump in losses compared to 2019. EAC and BEC amount for 45% of total reported cybersecurity incidents in the US and 11% of users are over the age of 60.
A roughly estimate suggests that largest reported ransomware payment till date has been $40 million. Unit 42 reports "when scammers use this tactic, it usually starts with a baited email enticing the recipient to open the attachment or click on the link to a webpage.
The emails usually focus on some segment of business operations (including finance, human resources, logistics and general office operations) and point to an attachment or link related to topics requiring user action."
Experts say that average ransomware demands in 2020 were $847,344, meanwhile, the average ransom that victims paid was $312,493.
In 2021, the ransom amount paid has risen upto 82% to $570,000. The amount mentioned for average ransom clients paid only includes direct financial losses given in ransoms. They do not include losses related with organization which lost revenue while being compelled to work in a compromised state during a cyberattack, and do not consist resources cost during the incident breach, but only include attacks that are known. The company decides not to report a cybersecurity incident depending upon nature and impact of the ransomware attack.
In the end, the decision complicates it for federal and cybersecurity agencies to calculate the full impact of these attacks. The EAC and BEC ransomware attacks have one thing in common, they need access privilege to victim's account and networks.
"The lucrative nature of BEC/EAC scams drives criminals to continually modify and upgrade their tactics to defeat protections. One of the newer techniques integrates spear phishing, custom webpages and the complex cloud single sign-on ecosystem to trick users into unwittingly divulging their credentials," reports Unit 42 of palo alto networks.
