25th November 2021

Consumers are set to spend £9bn on deals this Black Friday and cybercriminals see this as the perfect opportunity to strike.

If you're covering cybersecurity this Black Friday, these stats may come into use. 

In the SonicWall mid-year threat report, they recorded:

• 495 million global ransomware attacks logged this year to date.
• Through the third quarter of 2021, there has been a 148% increase in ransomware attacks year to date, surpassing the total number of 2020 ransomware attacks by July. 
• In November 2020, there were 37.8 million global ransomware attacks, 4 million more than either October or December of the same year. 

Dmitriy Ayrapetov, VP of Platform Architecture at SonicWall has commented:

“Cybercriminals are relentless in their search for profit. Ransomware holds organizations business operations hostage, which uniquely impacts retailers and other organizations that provide daily, direct services to their customers. Such attacks directly affect the victim’s revenue generation and thus provide additional leverage to the attackers in extracting the ransom. 

Ransomware operators continue to mix-and-match malware ingredients deployed during the attack, as well as escalating their techniques from beyond phishing.  Organizations need to protect their outward-facing attack surface, but equally importantly, establish internal barriers (segmentation) to prevent lateral exploitation on which attackers rely to establish persistence and larger network access once they establish foothold on a single system."

I have also attached the SonicWall mid-year threat report with more data, for your own consideration.