A lot has been written about the high rates of cybercrime and ransomware attacks over the past year. The uncertainties of an era marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, along with a move to the work-from-home lifestyle that put a lot of people’s sensitive data at risk is represented quite starkly by a new report on ransomware payments for the first half of 2021.
A recent report from the United States Department of the Treasury reveals that ransomware payments scaled to almost $600 million over the course of the first six months of 2021.
By comparison, the ransomware payments made for all of 2020 totaled $416 million. For concrete examples of how high impact these attacks can be, just think back to what happened during the Colonial Pipeline and meat processor JBS USA Holdings incidents this year. Both were forced to pay millions, with real world consequences. After both hacks, meat supplies were affected and the nation’s gas prices went up, CNET reports.
“The Treasury says the rise potentially reflects both a big increase in ransomware-related attacks, as well as improved detection and reporting of those attacks by financial institutions,” writes CNET’s Bree Fowler. “It notes that the number of ransomware-related suspicious activity reports also rose 30 percent to 635, when compared to the entire calendar year of 2020.”
A bleak reality stands — the Treasury Department estimates the total ransomware payments for the entire calendar year will extend beyond those of the past 10 years combined.
This warning underscores what everyone can do to be vigilant about these attacks. You don’t have to be the CEO of a tech firm to feel the pressure of how crucial it is to secure your data.
If you receive a strange email or text message from a source you don’t recognize, never share personal financial information or transfer funds. If a suspicious email or text contains a link, do not click on it.
These commonsense practices that mark effective cybersecurity hygiene are important for all of us to keep in mind, especially as current work-from-home policies further blur the lines of distinction between personal and professional. In short, transmitting sensitive data over a shared family computer can bear with it serious cybersecurity headaches.
Make sure you always update software on all of your devices, institute multi-factor authentication, and educate others in your household or at your office about proper protocols for keeping sensitive data protected from hackers.