India worst hit by ransomware in Asia Pacific region

In spite of having a maximum number of software engineers in the Silicon Valley, India is the worst hit by ransomware attacks in the Asia Pacific region. This year, as per Check Point Research, it is seen that India has received a maximum number of threats and is followed by Argentina, Chile, France, and Taiwan. There has been a global surge in the number of ransomware attacks this year as there has been a 102 percent increase as compared previous year. And this number is showing no signs of slowing down.

The 2020 Global Cyber Security Attitude Survey revealed that India is threatened by attacks originating from China and Pakistan due to rising geopolitical tensions. Comparing with other countries 74 percent of Indian companies are exposed to this threat every year, whereas Australia receives 67 percent, Japan 52 percent, and Singapore 46 percent cyber-attacks. Another survey conducted by US-based cybersecurity technology company CrowdStrike stated that more than a third of Indian companies have paid $1-$2.5 million as ransom to hackers in the last year.

While in North America, healthcare organizations have suffered the most attacks since thebeginning of the year, in Europe, the utility sector faces the most number of attacks. Talkingabout the APAC region, the insurance and legal department are the worst impacted, while inLATAM, it is the communications industry. Africa faces severe threat through ransomwarehacking in their financial and banking sector.

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With time these ransomware attempts have been extended to double extortion ransomwaretechnique, integrating an additional, unique threat to the process, resulting in triple extortion.One such case was seen last October in Finland at Vastaamo Finnish psychotherapy clinic.

The attack targeted at data of 40,000-patient, and because of this, the clinic suffered a year-long breach that culminated in extensive patient data theft and a ransomware attack. A decent ransom was demanded from the healthcare provider, but surprisingly, smaller sums were also demanded from the patients, who had received the ransom demands individually by email. These people agreed to pay as they were afraid of their details being misused or publishing their therapists’ session notes

Protecting against this ransomware requires a specialized security solution. To protect against the attack that slips through the cracks, anti-ransomware solutions should be programmed in the monitors. If these behaviors are detected, the program can take action to stop encryption before further damage can be done.