SonicWall says they detected 226.3 million attempted ransomware attacks between January and May 2021, which is an 116% increase over the same period. By region, 149% in the US and 69% in the UK. The company also released information about a vulnerability disclosed last year for it’s firewalls – it was only partially fixed, and this DoS fix has been updated again to fix it.
The Clop ransomware is back – despite recent arrests. The gang is listing new victims again, and have doxed two new victims . FBI director Wray is urging companies to stop paying ransoms to hackers, and per research, 79% of cyber professionals agree.
Russia’s security chief is indicating that Moscow will work with the US to find hackers – with a hope for reciprocity. The National Security Agency showcased their new Cybersecurity Collaboration Center – a rare open collaboration with the private sector. The EU has a new one too – their Joint Cyber Unit to repond to public and private needs.
A cohort of cybersecurity companies have signed an open letter to reform the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to resolve issues related to research and disclosure of security issues.
Microsoft is warning about a call center plow to get users to install ransomware – the first step is getting the user to call into a support center, where a user is directed to download an infected Excel… all to “keep their service billing setup”, and the Excel would unsubscribe them. Instead, BazarLoader is now on their machine.
And another new scam – brushing. Third party sellers of online shopping platforms set up accounts in a stranger’s name, seingin them products… and using the account to write fake verified reviews to improve their seller rating. And your data is stolen.
Criminals are also increasingly using virtual machines, in research from Symantec. This provides additional cover, reducing the likely hood of being disovered early. Hide in a VM.. encrypt the host.
ConnectWise and Vanson Bourne researched cybersecurity challenges for SMBs.
Protecting against cybersecurity attacks has fallen from being a top three priority in 49% of organizations in 2020, to 44% in 2021
75% of decision makers agree that their organization is less secure due to the added complexity of a remote workforce. Moreover, only 35% of decision makers report their organization is very well protected against remote devices/employees being breached
Only 7% of SMB organizations say they have cybersecurity-specific conversations as a matter of course with MSPs, a fall from 13% in 2020.
Most SMBs would consider moving to a new IT service provider that has the “right” solution, and those SMBs are willing to pay on average 34 percent more for that service provider, the Vanson Bourne report estimates.
Contrasting, JumpCloud’s data says IT leaders are upset over the amount of cybersecurity money being spent to support remote work. In their 2021 State of the SME IT Admin report, 60% of respondents said their enterprise was paying “for more tooling than they need” to manage user identities, while another 56% said too much was being spent on enabling remote work.
Respondents were more split on the top concerns, with 39% referencing software vulnerabilities, 37% expressing concern about reused usernames and passwords and 36% mentioning unsecured networks
LogRhythm’s data also shows a disconnect – few infosec leaders have a direct voice to the C-suite, showing on average they were three levels away from the CEO.
Why do we care?
ConnectWise wants you to believe that the conclusion is that SMBs will pay more for security and will switch because of it. Or is it that SMBs are just accepting this is part of the course of business, just like big companies are? I recently made the argument to not accept the risk that the vendors want you to. What if the customers just want to ignore it?
Because they seem to be – JumpCloud and LogRhythm’s data shows it’s not an active concern nor where customers seem to want to spend their money. ConnectWise’s own research tells us that too – it’s dropping as a priority, not increasing.
I think we’re looking for “enough” security… but not everything security. As I’ve highlighted here before, taking on security is also taking on risk. Decide how much you ACTUALLY want to take on … if it’s your best opportunity. It could well not be.. or need to be actually paired and embedded in a more important one, like business solutions.
