Ransomware assaults dominated the news in 2021, and they show no signs of letting down. In fact, fraudsters are doubling down on ransomware by devising new ways to extract money from victims. While Nigeria was attacked by ransomware attacks at a rate of 71 percent in the previous year, it has 62 percent cyber insurance, with an average cost of 3.43 million dollars to recover in 2021. In ransomware assaults, Nigeria is believed to have had a 70% encryption rate. However, according to a survey conducted by Sophos, the number of people impacted who have paid the ransom has increased globally. Nigeria has also been recognized in the state of ransomware 2022, with an average ransomware payment of $706.452.
Insights and Statistics
Backup is the number one way to restore encrypted data, although it cannot protect against the risk, however, it is in fact used by 73% of the organizations, whose data have been encrypted. However, 44% of organizations actually use multiple methods to restore encrypted data. It’s enticing to think that, rather than go through the entire process of getting backups and the likes, paying ransom for decryption is a quicker option. Paying the ransom shouldn’t be an option, because the attacker might have done certain things with the compromised system, like privilege escalation, installing backdoors, and even logic bombs! So, organizations that paid the ransom would have to thoroughly clean collected data to prevent repeated attacks. Also, paying the ransom does not get you all your data back. Matter of fact, in 2021, only 4% got all their data back, according to Sophos state of ransomware 2022.
Ransomware-as-a-service
There has also been a discovery of Ransomware-as-a-service, RaaS, whereby the attacker does not need to have so much skill to deploy a ransomware attack. So, RaaS is a business model which is malicious and based on subscriptions whereby ransomware operators give out the malware to their partners through the dark web. Ransomware operators receive their own part of payments gained during RaaS campaigns.
Away from all the logic, recent recoveries have it that the increase in ransomware attacks is said to have boosted cybersecurity skills in Nigeria by 87%. During the frequent cyberattacks during the pandemic, IT security teams saw the need to level up their skills, so as to be able to mitigate attacks of any form.
Moving to ransomware and the financial sector, John Shier, Senior Security Advisor at Sophos said: ‘In the financial services industry, strict restrictions promote strong defenses.’ Furthermore, this means that a targeted ransomware attack on a particular business is usually extremely costly. Adding up the prices of regulatory fines, rebuilding IT systems, and recreating brand reputation, especially if customer data was affected, it’s why the recovery costs of mid-sized financial organizations involved in ransomware attacks, were in excess of millions, according to Sophos survey.
Protecting the Financial Sector
The financial sector is too important to risk without putting in place a comprehensive defensive strategy to defend, identify, and stop cybercriminals. Lastly on Nigeria’s finance with reference to ransomware attacks, the President of the Cybersecurity Experts Association of Nigeria, CSEAN, Mr. Remi Afon had pointed out that there would be even more cyberattacks in 2022 than there were in 2021. This might, however, gravely affect the country’s finance. His assessment was centered on Nigerian cybersecurity trends, as well as perspectives from global specialists who examine the growing cyber ecosystem and security concerns.
Afon implied that with ransomware emerging as the modern digital pandemic, the biggest reported ransom paid by enterprises in 2022, as well as service disruption with the greatest financial impact, is in anticipation. The loss would be evaluated not just in terms of the ransom paid, but also in relation to financial costs owing to service outages, market share losses, and a decline in stakeholder confidence, among several other concerns.
Without a doubt, the growth of RaaS groups on the dark web led to significant ransomware attacks in 2021. Ransomware transactions amounted to an average of $102.3 million every month, according to FinCEN.
Recommendations:
- The focus is on getting up and running as quickly as possible with the least amount of downtime;
- Carry out vulnerability assessments;
- A disaster recovery plan should be in place;
- Maintain high-quality security throughout your environment. Examine your security protocols;
- Threat hunt as often as possible, to enable you to prevent attacks from launching attacks.
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