Ransomware revenue decreases because victims of less often pay, chainalysis reports-security
Ransomware revenue decreases because victims of less often pay, chainalysis reports-security
While the number of ransomware hits may not have decreased significantly, the income from such attacks, according to Chainalysis, decreased significantly last year. The blockchain forensic company believes that the trend is largely due to the fact that more of the attacked organizations refuse to pay the perpetrators.
Chainalysis registers considerable decline in sales through ransomware attacks
In the course of 2022, Ransomware players managed to blackmail at least $ 456.8 million of victims, as Chainalysis in A unveiled Test report Thursday published. The estimated amount has decreased of $ 765.6 million in the previous year, the analysis company pointed out, and found that the true sum is probably much higher, since many of the crypto addresses controlled by attackers still have to be identified.
"The trend is clear: ransomware payments are significantly declining," said the authors of the study, but emphasize that this finding does not mean that fewer attacks have been carried out. Instead, they believe that a large part of the decline is due to a growing number of affected organizations that actually refuse to pay the required ransom.
The chain analysis also indicates a considerable increase in unique ransomware tribes in 2022, which continues the growth of active tribes in recent years. At the same time, the majority of the ransomware income continues to go to a limited group of tribes, say the researchers, which means that "the actual number of people from whom the ransomware ecosystem is probably quite low".
victims pay less often, report claims
The onchain data compiled by Chainalysis show an "enormous decline" of the ransomware income of over 40.3 %. The evidence available to the company indicates that the decline is more likely to be due to the increasing lack of willingness of the victims to pay ransoms than to decrease the number of attempts to blackmail money.
According to Michael Phillips, Chief Claims Officer of the cyber insurance company Resilience, claims that are submitted to the industry that ransomware remains a growing threat, but certain factors disrupt black attempts at how the war in Ukraine and the tightening pressure from western prosecution on groups that commit such crimes, including arrest .
The Recorded Future Intelligence Analyst and Ransomware expert Allan Liska cited information collected by data-leak sites that pointed out that ransomware attacks have decreased by over 10 % between 2021 and 2022, from 2,865 to 2.566. The expert also pointed out another reason for the falling income - the payment of ransoms has become legally risky - and explained:
With impending sanctions, there are also legal consequences for payment [Ransomware Attackers].
also cyber insurance companies that compensate for victims of ransomware play a role. "Cyber insurance really took the lead by not only determining who you insure, but also what insurance payments can be used for, so that you allow your customers to use an insurance payment to pay a ransom," commented Liska.
commented onThe demand for cyber insurers for improved cyber security measures is an important driver for the trend towards rarer ransom payments, explained Bill Siegel, co-founder and CEO of the Ransomware incident reaction company COVEWARE. The statistics of his company show that the victim payment rates have dropped from 76 % to 41 % between 2019 and 2022.
What do you think about the results of the Chainalysis report on Ransomware trends? Share them in the comment area below.
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