The Pain of Double Extortion Ransomware

Ransomware perpetrators are adopting more sophisticated attack techniques with much success. Attackers are increasingly threatening double and triple extortion in addition to ransom demands, putting more pressure on victims to comply. According to a recent market study¹, 71% of individuals surveyed said double and triple extortion tactics have grown in popularity over the last 12 months, and 65% agree that these new threats make it tougher to refuse ransom demands.

Ransomware attacks have become much more dangerous and have evolved beyond basic security defenses and business continuity techniques like next-gen antivirus and backups. The problem is that businesses are not yet aware of double or triple extortion ransomware and how these tactics can affect their data protection strategies.

What is Double Extortion Ransomware?

Double extortion ransomware is a growing type of cyber-attack in which a victim’s sensitive data is first stolen, and then encrypted, giving the criminal the option of demanding two separate ransom payments. Any organization that directly holds vast amounts of data or holds client, supplier, or partner information is vulnerable to double extortion attacks. As part of double extortion attacks, tactics often include the threat of DDoS attacks.

According to a separate study², double extortion, which became popular in the first quarter of 2020, collects confidential business information before encrypting a victim’s database. To increase pressure, the bad actors then threaten to publish the private data. Triple extortion, a trend that quickly adopted this model, threatens to reveal information obtained from the victim’s organization to an organization’s customers or suppliers, or even demand a secondary payment from individual customers whose data have been accessed.

The threat of double extortion tactics is ominous. According to the same report:

• 38% of attacks threaten to use stolen data to extort customers
• 35% of attacks threaten to expose stolen data o
  
  […]
  Content was cut in order to protect the source.Please visit the source for the rest of the article.
  This article has been indexed from Thales CPL Blog Feed

  Read the original article:

  The Pain of Double Extortion Ransomware

  Related