In another year when the danger of hackers seemed to grow, four ransomware strains poised a bigger threat than any other.
Cybersecurity company Webroot has revealed its third annual listing of the nastiest malwares out there. Even though botnets, cryptomining and phising all continued to be a huge concern, Webroot noted that this year had seen a rise of ransomware strains, programs that lock users out of their systems and blackmail them for money.
Four strains in particular poised a huge danger to businesses this year: Emotet, GandCrab, Crysis and Sodinokibi.
Emotet usually worked as part of a triple threat that included the Trickbot and Ryuk strains. This combination was named one of the most successful chains in 2019 in terms of the financial damages they had caused.
GandCrab is a ransomware-as-a-service, or RaaS, program. To date, the authors behind it have boasted shared profits in excess of $2bn, according to Webroot.
Just like Emotet, Sodinokibi have proven successful in combination with Sodin. This combination arose after the retirement of GandCrab.
CrySis, particularly the Dharma variant, returned to the list in 2019 after featuring on it back in 2018.
Tyler Moffitt, security analyst at Webroot, said “It comes as no surprise that we continue to see cybercriminals evolve their tactics. They may be using the same strains of malware, but they are making better use of the immense volume of stolen personal information available to craft more convincing targeted attacks. Consumers and organizations need to adopt a layered security approach and not underestimate the power of consistent security training as they work to improve their cyber resiliency and protection.”
The findings or Webroot coincide with previous findings from McAfee Labs, the cybersecurity company. In August, the business released a report suggesting that the number of ransomware attacks grew by 118% in the first quarter of 2019.
WannaCry did not make the list, but the ransomware that wreaked havoc across the globe in 2017 is still active, according to a report by Sophos.
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