According to CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) and the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), Ransomware hackers intentionally plan their attacks to occur on weekends and holidays. This is part of their strategy because the delay caused by a weekend (in particular, a long weekend) allows Ransomware actors a head start in exploiting the network. Network defenders and IT support at the victim are at limited capacity during those times.
With Labour Day coming up, the FBI and CISA have been encouraging organizations to do an overview of their current cybersecurity stance and go over what safety precautions are best to make sure they are safe. Cyber-attacks have only been on the rise and have been increasingly targeting large organizations with the expectation of higher value ransoms and increased likelihood of payments.
In 2020, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 791,790 complaints for all types of internet crimes, with reported losses exceeding $4.1 billion. A total of 2,474 ransomware incidents were reported in 2020, compared to 948 reported incidents the year before. The agencies also have stated that phishing and brute force attacks on unsecured remote desktop protocol (RDP) have stood as the most frequently used infection techniques employed by ransomware operators. Recommending that organizations “engage in pre-emptive threat hunting on their networks” to make sure they can prevent attacks before they occur. If you or your business are planning on taking the right measures in applying ransomware prevention, Davis Cyber Law can help you ensure that you are taking all the correct precautions.
