News

There was a breach, so the bad news isn’t great, but the good news isn’t too bad…

Chainalysis reports that worldwide ransomware payments were down in 2022.

Ransomware attackers extorted at least $456.8 million from victims in 2022, down from $765.6 million the year before.

As always, we have to caveat these findings by noting that the true totals are much higher, as there are cryptocurrency addresses controlled by ransomware attackers that have yet to be identified on the blockchain and incorporated into our data. When we published last year’s version of this report, for example, we had only identified $602 million in ransomware payments in 2021. Still, the trend is clear: Ransomware payments are significantly down.

However, that doesn’t mean attacks are down, or at least not as much as the drastic drop-off in payments would suggest. Instead, we believe that much of the decline is due to victim organizations increasingly refusing to pay ransomware attackers.

The cyber-attack hit the company between November 2018 and October 2020

Threat actors used TrickGate to conduct between 40 and 650 attacks per week in the last two years

The data comes from 155 dark web forums analyzed between January 2020 and June 2022

Over 20 million users install apps from Google Play

Woman recruited multiple co-conspirators to help her

Russia’s Sandworm group suspected of destructive attack

Enjoy our Serious Security deep dive into this real-world example of why cryptographic agility is important!

NIST is planning a significant update of its Cybersecurity Framework. At this point, it’s asking for feedback and comments to its concept paper.

1. Do the proposed changes reflect the current cybersecurity landscape (standards, risks, and technologies)?
2. Are the proposed changes sufficient and appropriate? Are there other elements that should be considered under each area?
3. Do the proposed changes support different use cases in various sectors, types, and sizes of organizations (and with varied capabilities, resources, and technologies)?
4. Are there additional changes not covered here that should be considered?
5. For those using CSF 1.1, would the proposed changes affect continued adoption of the Framework, and how so?
6. For those not using the Framework, would the proposed changes affect the potential use of the Framework?

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework has turned out to be an excellent resource. If you use it at all, please help with version 2.0.