Ransomware South Africa
Why Ransomware is the Greatest Threat to Your Organisation
Ransomware is getting nastier and more expensive all the time and it has affected almost every industry and geography. No one is immune from the threat. In a global ransomware survey conducted by Fortinet, 67% of organizations report suffering a ransomware attack. Even worse, almost half said they had been targeted more than once, and nearly one in six said they had been attacked three or more times. Renee Tarun, Deputy CISO/ Vice President Information Security, Fortinet Inc. The US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) reported that organizations paid out almost $600 million in ransomware in the first half of 2021, which puts the US on track to surpass the combined payouts of the previous decade in a single year. Last year’s attacks on the suppl...
The State of Cyber Extortion Crime in South Africa
Sourced from Kaspersky The KnowBe4 and ITWeb Ransomware Survey took a deep look into the South African organisation, finding that ransomware and cybercrime are increasingly impacting organisations on the continent. While many companies (32%) were attacked in 2021, some multiple times (12%), 64% of organisations believe they are prepared, and 67% would not pay the ransom. According to Anna Collard, SVP Content Strategy & Evangelist at KnowBe4 Africa, the South African market with its growing economy and cyber dependence, is becoming increasingly tasty as a cyber extortion snack. Anna Collard, SVP Content Strategy & Evangelist at KnowBe4 Africa. “It is natural for cybercriminal organisations to look at emerging economies for future attacks, as they are often not as prepared as the re...
How a Small Email Phish Can Become a Million Rand Ransom
Image sourced from Kaspersky. Cybercrime is smart, innovative, and agile. Cybercriminals are well-rewarded for their innovative attack vectors and have no incentive to stop finding inventive ways of penetrating systems and moving past the most vulnerable defences. According to Paul Grapendaal, Head of Managed Security Services at Nclose, there’s no standard playbook when it comes to penetrating a system successfully, but there are solid security steps that can mitigate risk and help the business manage the fallout. Steps that will help bolster your defences and ensure that one phish won’t cost your business millions. Paul Grapendaal, Head of Managed Security Services at Nclose. “There are obvious routes of attack, such as spear phishing, that are designed to focus on a target with the sole...
31.5 Million Cyberthreats Targeted SA Users in the First Half of 2021
Image sourced from Feed Navigator. The increase in cyberthreats recorded by global internet security firm Kaspersky in the first half of this year across South Africa amounted to 31.5 million. “Threats can be categorised as criminal (80% of attacks), targeted (19.9%), and advanced (0.01%). The advanced grouping is significantly more sophisticated and feature increased investment from attack groups. Unfortunately, both criminal and targeted threat vectors learn from the advanced category to enhance their own attack techniques,” says Amin Hasbini, Head of Research Centre, Global Research & Analysis Team, Middle East, Turkey and Africa at Kaspersky. Attacks Are Becoming More Sophisticated Hasbini says that the current trends show that attackers around the world are embracing more sophisti...
Fight Back Against the Rise of Ransomware in SA with EDR Solutions
When cyberattacks are on the rise, as they certainly have been in South Africa this year, an organisation cannot afford to have its cybersecurity operating in a reactive manner. And yet, far too many businesses operate in this manner, making them prime targets for a breach. This is according to Milad Aslaner, Senior Director, Cyber Defense Strategy at SentinelOne, which helps organisations to prevent, detect, respond to and remediate end-point threats using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Its endpoint security products are distributed throughout Africa by Networks Unlimited. Aslaner explains: “Endpoints including laptop computers, tablets, and phones provide entry points to a wider network penetration that could harm the organisation, and which is one of the goals of ran...
African Bank Warns of Data Breach After Partner Struck by Ransomware
Image sourced from Redefine. South African retail bank African Bank has confirmed that one of its debt recovery partners, Debt-IN, was targeted by a ransomware attack in April 2021. At that time, advice from security experts concluded that there was no evidence that the attack had resulted in a data breach, however now BusinessTech reports that Debt-IN has become aware that personal data of certain customers, including a number of African Bank Loan customers who had been under debt review at the time, has been compromised by the threat actors. In response, African Bank says that it is confident that no data shared after the 1 April attack has been compromised. “A robust mitigation plan has been implemented by Debt-IN to contain and reduce any further adverse impact,” the lender said. “We h...
How to Successfully Recover from a Ransomware Attack
Sourced from Kaspersky South Africa is an attractive target for cybercriminals for a number of reasons, and the last few years have seen a sharp rise in high-profile ransomware attacks. One of the key motivations driving this volume of attacks is the fact that data is a de facto currency and an extremely valuable commodity on the black market. While backup is a critical component of data protection, when this backup is also encrypted by malicious software, companies are often left with few options other than to pay the ransom. Therefore, an effective Cyber Recovery strategy, which enables businesses to get back up and running without having to give in to criminal demands, is the key. Ransomware on the Rise The rapid adoption of digital transformation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the I...
Take Steps Now to Protect Your Organisation as Ransomware-as-a-Service Ramps Up DDoS Attack Offerings
Image sourced from Ben Kerckx, Pixabay. The services industry has traditionally included sectors ranging from social assistance and health care to transportation and scientific services. However, it doesn’t end there, because the human talent for innovation can turn almost anything into a service. We also find – rather less top-of-mind for most people – the offer of hitmen-as-a-service, usually associated, at least in Hollywood, with large and well-muscled men in expensive suits and sunglasses. A few years ago, this area of business moved into the cyber arena as well. And so we present: ransomware-as-a-service. Today, one of its latest offerings is a ‘triple threat’ that turns Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks into an even more lethal cyber weapon against organisations. Carole H...
South Africa Ranked as 3rd Most Targeted Country by Ransomware
Over the last few years, the number of users encountering targeted ransomware – malware used to extort money from high-profile targets, such as corporations, government agencies, and municipal organisations – increased by 767%. This increase in targeted ransomware occurred alongside a 29% decrease in the overall number of users affected by any kind of ransomware, with WannaCry still the most frequently encountered family. These are among the most important findings in Kaspersky’s recent report on the ransomware landscape from 2019-2020. The ransomware threat – when attackers encrypt private information and hold it to ransom – became mainstream news in the 2010s following large-scale outbreaks, such as WannaCry and Cryptolocker. They targeted tens of thousands of users and often requested r...
South African Organisations Lag Behind Global Average of Cybersecurity Resilience
Email and data security company, Mimecast, unveiled its fourth-annual State of Email Security 2020 report. This report summarises details from 1,025 global IT decision-makers on the current state of cybersecurity. The findings in this year’s report demonstrate that despite high levels of confidence in respondents’ cyber resilience strategies, there is a clear need for improvement. While a large majority (77%) of respondents say they have or are actively rolling out a cyber resilience strategy, only 62% of South African organisations are doing the same. Yet an astounding 47% of local organisations – and 60% of global ones – believe it is inevitable or likely they will suffer from an email-borne attack in the coming year. South African respondents cite data loss (35%), a decrease in employee...
