It's readily apparent that ransomware — and its evolution into extortionware — is a critically serious threat. Cisco's Talos Incident Response team has seen it as dominating its responses for seven quarters in a row, and the ecosystem of initial access brokers, service providers, and monetization organizations is sophisticated, well integrated, and extremely effective. Added to that, the average ransomware demand has increased (according to Palo Alto's Crypsis IR Team) to more than $840,000, payments total more than $300,000, and in 2021 we've already seen the record payment demand of $10 million be dwarfed by the reported $50 million asked of Acer.
If you live in the cybersecurity news cycle, you could be forgiven for thinking that ransomware is the only threat. There is always a report of another victim, a new approach, or a new crew. The FBI's 2020 "Internet Crime Report" tells a very different story, however, with reported ransomware payments being extremely low, at under $30 million, with other forms of cybercrime dwarfing this number.
It's likely that this is low than reality, and a significant majority of the payments were paid via third parties or not reported — but it still pales beside business email compromise (BEC). Reported BEC numbers alone are over $1.8 billion for the US, and there's an additional $300 million in fraud that could be similarly attributed.
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