By Cynthia Ezekwe.
Nigeria saw a seven per cent increase in ransomware attack attempts on individual and corporate users in the first half of 2023 compared to H1 2022, according to research by Kaspersky, a global cybersecurity and digital privacy company.
According to the Kaspersky security network data, ransomware remains one of the main threats to information security globally, as IBM’s data breach report in 2022 disclosed that the average cost of a ransomware attack was US$4.54 million, while Kaspersky solutions detected that over 74.2 million attempted ransomware attacks were recorded in 2021.
The report found that although ransomware numbers may fluctuate by season and region, it cannot be overstated that ransomware is becoming more sophisticated and targeted, pointing out that ransomware attackers target all types of organisations, from healthcare and educational institutions to service providers and industrial enterprises.
Commenting in the increasse of ransomware attack globally, Dmitry Galov, head of Kaspersky Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT), Russia, said, “Ransomware groups around the world continue to improve their techniques. They are driven by three main factors. First, it is the chances of getting caught when attacking a certain organisation. The second factor is the size of ransom they can potentially receive. Finally, they always estimate the technical difficulty of the attack. If any one of these parameters goes out of line with the plans of the attackers, they reconsider.’’
“Installing effective security solutions will likely draw ransomware groups away from an organisation. It is a necessary investment, as ransomware attacks can result in disastrous consequences such as permanent loss of information, disruption of business processes, loss of time, harm to reputation, and huge financial losses,” Galov added.
To this end, Kaspersky has outlined preventive measures to protect companies, organisations, institutions and individuals against ransomware vulnerabilities, which include keeping software updated on all devices, to prevent ransomware from exploiting vulnerabilities.
“Do not expose remote desktop/management services (such as RDP, MSSQL, etc.) to public networks unless absolutely necessary and always use strong passwords, two-factor authentication and firewall rules for them,’’ Kaspersky noted.
The cybersecurity company advised organisations to focus their defense strategy on detecting lateral movements and data exfiltration to the Internet, while paying special attention to the outgoing traffic to detect cybercriminals’ connections, adding that they avoid downloading and installing pirated software or software from unknown sources.
It recommended backing up data regularly with special attention to offline backup strategies and ensuring that such data can be quickly accessed in an emergency when needed, noting that an action plan should be prepared for reputational risk of data exposure in the unfortunate event of data theft.
Kaspersky further stressed that companies and organisations use solutions like Kaspersky endpoint detection and response expert and Kaspersky managed detection and response service which help to identify and stop the attack on early stages, before attackers reach their final goals.
“To protect the corporate environment, educate your employees. Dedicated training courses can help, such as the ones provided in the Kaspersky Automated Security Awareness Platform. Use a reliable endpoint security solution, such as Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business (KESB) that is powered by exploit prevention, behaviour detection and a remediation engine that is able to roll back malicious actions. KESB also has self-defense mechanisms which can prevent its removal by cybercriminals,’’ the digital privacy company added.
