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Ransomware attacks double in first quarter: Beazley

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Ransomware

There was a 105% increase in the number of ransomware attack notifications against Beazley PLC clients in this year’s first quarter, compared with the same quarter a year ago, the insurer said in a report issued Wednesday.

“Not only has the frequency of attacks increased, but attackers are shifting focus, targeting larger organizations and demanding higher ransom payments,” says the Beazley Breach Insights Report.

The report said sophisticated attack groups associated with ransomware variants “are targeting larger organizations through phishing emails and tricking users into deploying banking Trojans.”

The report said banking Trojans were first designed to steal banking credentials from users of online banking websites. But with recent variants such as Emotet and Trickbot, criminals “have also been able to harvest all kinds of account credentials.”

“Newer types of banking Trojans will also perform reconnaissance on email accounts and deploy other malware, most commonly ransomware onto a system with relative ease.”

The report said cyber criminals exploit the stolen credentials to “steal from financial accounts, defraud through business email compromise, or commit identity theft.”

Firms that believe their systems have been infected with a banking Trojan should disconnect infected machines from their network as soon as possible, reset passwords and alert employees to change passwords for any personal accounts they may have accessed through the machine, and regularly train employees to not open unsolicited attachments and links, among other measures, Beazley said in the report.

 

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