International. According to the Financial Crime Enforcement Network's (FinCEN) Financial Trend Analysis Report, in the first half of 2021 there were 635 reports reporting $590 million in suspicious activity, related to payments for ransomware attacks in the United States.
FinCEN studied the incidences of ransomware in bank secrecy Act (BSA) data. It also reviewed and verified each Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR) to remove any non-ransomware-related actions and extract the relevant indicators. Of these reports, 458 reported real transactions worth 398 million dollars, this value means an increase of 42% compared to the entire period of 2020.
Now, the remaining 177 SARs were identified as virtual wallets used to carry out outgoing transactions in Bitcoin (BTC), linked to ransomware payments for an approximate amount of 5.2 billion dollars, taking into account the value of BTC at the time of the analysis.
These indicators reflect the cybersecurity situation of this 2022, where cyber threats have taken a great force. Becoming a challenge for organizations and financial institutions globally, which seek to protect their privacy, operability and financial health. As well as a challenge for companies that provide security services, which must face increasingly sophisticated and encrypted forms of information theft.
According to the company HelpRansomware the worst mistake that can be made, when receiving a ransomware attack, is to try to decrypt the information through tools that are online. On the contrary, he suggests consulting a specialist, in case of having someone who meets that profile within the affected entity, who can determine the best options to follow.
In that sense, he also points out that an efficient service to respond to ransomware-type attacks is characterized by: understanding the variant used and analyzing the malware to determine if the encryption can be broken; determine which vector has caused the attack and define preventive methods, i.e. improve cybersecurity practices within the company; modify decryption programs that do not work or that malfunction and that cause delays in their work; repair the database or damaged files, all added to a clear and sufficient explanation to the customer of what to expect.
