Over the past year, hospitals and the healthcare industry have been under tremendous pressure during the COVID-19 pandemic, not only dealing with surges in patient numbers, but also with shameless ransomware attacks launched by cybercriminals who see the sector as a soft target. However, it now seems that criminals are shifting their attention to new targets, because they sense even easier opportunities for their extortion tactics.
Following the recent disclosure of vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft Exchange Servers, Check Point Research (CPR) has observed a global surge in the number of ransomware attacks. In fact, since the beginning of 2021, there has been a 9% increase monthly in organizations affected ransomware. This uptick includes a 57% increase in organizations affected by ransomware in the past 6 months. According to various reports and official alerts from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the US, ransomware attacks are targeting Microsoft Exchange servers by leveraging previously exposed vulnerabilities.
In the last week alone, the number of attacks involving Exchange Server vulnerabilities has tripled. With over 50,000 attack attempts seen globally, CPR has observed that the most targeted industries are government/military, manufacturing and banking/finance. The most affected country is the United States (49% of all exploit attempts), followed by the United Kingdom (5%), the Netherlands (4%) and Germany (4%).
Ransomware spikes globally
CPR has also observed the following trends in ransomware attacks:
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