Amid a rise in digital technologies, the vulnerability abuse leading to a 204 per cent increase in ransomware victims and critical industries at risk in Asia-Pacific and Japan, said Akamai in a research report on Tuesday.
The report also found that ransomware groups increasingly target the exfiltration of files and the unauthorised extraction or transfer of sensitive information, which has become the primary source of extortion. This new tactic indicates file backup solutions are no longer a sufficient strategy to protect against ransomware.
A deeper examination of the data revealed that essential infrastructure in the region is being actively targeted, as the top five critical industries in APJ that have been attacked by ransomware and are at further risk are manufacturing, business services, construction, retail, as well as energy, utilities, and telecommunications.
“Unless cybersecurity standards are strengthened, organisations in this sector will continue to be vulnerable to disruption,” it mentioned.
The spike in ransomware attacks is due to adversaries shifting the emphasis of their modus operandi from phishing to vulnerability abuse in order to exploit unknown security threats and infiltrate business internal networks to deploy ransomware.
LockBit has been the most subscribed ransomware-as-a-service and now dominates the ransomware landscape in APJ, accounting for 51 per cent of attacks from Q3 2021 to Q2 2023 – followed by the ALPHV and CL0P ransomware groups, it added.
“Adversaries behind ransomware attacks continue to evolve their techniques and strategies striking at the heart of organisations by exfiltrating their critical and sensitive information,” said Dean Houari, Director of Security Technology and Strategy, Akamai.
He added that it’s imperative that both the private and public sectors across APJ strengthen collaboration to help organisations defend against ever-growing ransomware threats.”
“Businesses – especially SMEs in APJ – must work to adopt a zero trust architecture starting with software-defined micro-segmentation in order to effectively mitigate ever-evolving cyber attacks as well as ransomware-as-a-service.
“By doing so, they can successfully protect their critical assets and business reputation and ensure business continuity regardless of the type of attack tool deployed by cyber criminal gangs,” said Houari.
