The company Acronis, which specializes in cyber protection, released its semi-annual cyber threats report, which provides an in-depth overview of rising trends in cyberattacks.
The report detailed how ransomware attacks on organizational systems continue to be the number-one threat to large and medium-sized businesses, including government organizations, with damage estimated at $30 billion by 2023.
The report stated that almost half of all information privacy violations reported during the first half of 2022 included the theft of account details and accidental access used for phishing and ransom attacks, which are constantly on the rise.
The findings point to a growing need for holistic, all-encompassing approaches to cybersecurity, as opposed to one-off solutions which many companies still use.
To extract information about network users, cyber attackers carry out phishing scams and send malicious emails to victims, in the vast majority of cases. The report showed that close to one percent of all emails received contain a malicious link or file, and more than 25% of emails are spam.
In Israel, approximately 11.4% of the organizations that use Acronis' malicious attack detection tracking software reported at least 25 attack attempts during June 2022.
Ransom attacks damage all aspects of an organization, and when they recur from time to time this causes long downtimes and a deterioration in the level of service.
The report stated that this will ultimately negatively affect the company's reputation and customer experience. It also said that in 2021 alone, the FBI attributed a total loss of $2.4 billion to business email compromise (BEC) from these attacks.
What other sectors are under threat?
Also in recent years, information security threats have expanded to non-traditional sectors such as cryptocurrencies and led to cumulative damage of more than 60 billion dollars in DeFi currency from 2021, with 44 billion of this amount just in the past year.
Candide West, VP of Cyber Security Research at Acronis, stated that cyber threats are only increasing and attackers today very easily evade traditional security measures.
She added that organizations of all sizes must adopt a holistic approach to cybersecurity that integrates all existing solutions starting with anti-malware attack software to advanced capabilities for email security, along with vulnerability assessment systems in order to ensure maximum security for the organization.