Ransomware attacks in the first half of 2021 have increased 151% compared to the first half of 2020.
SonicWall (a security company) recorded a depressing 304.7 million attempted attacks over the first half of this year. That is more in the first half of this year than they logged in the entirety of 2020 which reached 304.6 million attacks in total.
Every month in the second quarter of 2021, set a new record for attacks.
The USA had the most attacks by far, and the UK ranked second with a 144% rise in attacks.
Sonicwall’s report attributes various factors to the rise, highlighting that paying high ransoms incentivises criminals to keep attacking. Paying ransoms is not sustainable as
it becomes uneconomic for insurance companies and makes victims more vulnerable.
The most attacked sectors are government and education.
Other malware attacks in the UK have dropped 17%. This reduction is probably because “spray-and-pray” attacks have been replaced with more lucrative, targeted attacks focused on ransomware and Internet of Things (IoT) vulnerabilities.
You can find the report here.
Image taken from Sonicwall's Cyber Threat Report