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93% Of Phishing Emails Are Now Ransomware (csoonline.com)

Posted by msmash on from the growing-security-trend dept.

According to the latest data from security firm PhishMe, 93% of all phishing emails as of the end of March contained encryption ransomware. The numbers underscore a growing trend in the security space as ransomware instances in phishing emails grew up by 56% since December last year. From a report: The anti-phishing vendor also counted the number of different variants of phishing emails that it saw. Ransomware accounted for 51 percent of all variants in March, up from just 29 percent in February and 15 percent in January. The skyrocketing growth is due to that fact that ransomware is getting easier and easier to send and that it offers a quick and easy return on investment. Other types of cyberattacks typically take more work to monetize. Stolen credit card numbers have to be sold and used before the cards are canceled, for example. Identity theft takes even more of a time commitment.

2 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Its a shame by Jason+Levine · · Score: 3, Informative

    One of the problems is jurisdiction. When the police were investigating my identity being stolen (used to open a credit card in my name, not related to phishing/ransomware), they told me that they weren't highly motivated to put in a lot of effort because they'd likely have to hand the case to another department to make the arrest. In their minds, they were asking why do the work when someone else would get the collar. Then there are international cases where the victim is in the US but the phisher is in Ukraine or some other country out of the reach of normal US law enforcement. As long as the phisher doesn't hit too big of a target (e.g. a major US government agency or Fortune 500 company), they will likely fly under the radar of law enforcement and/or pleas to local law enforcement will be made but they will not result in arrests (either due to corruption or lack of interest in pursuing these cases due to the victims being from another country).

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  2. Re:And what's our suggestion to friends and family by wbr1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    VERSIONED BACKUPS! VERSIONED BACKUPS! VERSIONED BACKUPS! Automated, off-site, and with rollback. Hell, carbonite can do this for her.

    --
    Silence is a state of mime.