Organizations Starting to Understand the Impact of Ransomware, But Their Efforts Not Enough to Overcome Infostealer Malware
Recent findings in a SpyCloud report shows companies are starting to recognize and shift their priorities to defend against ransomware attacks, but the use of infostealer malware still has a high success rate for cybercriminals.
According to SpyCloud’s analysis, 76% of infections that preceded these ransomware events involved Raccoon infostealer malware. Infostealer malware is a commonly used predecessor to ransomware these days, and was the source behind 22% of ransomware events in North America and Europe in 2023.
In a statement from Trevor Hilligoss, Senior Director of Security Research at SpyCloud, “Ransomware is a malware problem at its core, and there’s a clear pattern emerging that shows infostealer malware is directly leading to ransomware attacks”.
An interesting finding about this report that I have to push back on is that organizations want to move away from security awareness training and focus on other security measures such as implementing multi-factor authentication and data backups as countermeasures to ransomware.
While we find these additional security layers to be important to include, we have to emphasize the importance of new-school security awareness training. Your users are the last line of defense, and the data doesn’t lie.
KnowBe4 enables your workforce to make smarter security decisions every day. Over 65,000 organizations worldwide trust the KnowBe4 platform to strengthen their security culture and reduce human risk.
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