Executive Director Brandon Wales of CISA spoke last week at the Right of Boom event and cited insurance companies as contributors to the rise of the ransomware industry. “Insurance companies didn’t price the market correctly, and they suffered for it with the rise of ransomware,” Wales said. “I would argue the insurance market fueled that same rise in ransomware because they made payment of ransoms far easier to happen. And they put a lot of companies under retainer to negotiate with criminal organizations. Now I think they are repricing the market. Premiums have gone up across the board, not just for MSPs.”
He said that the U.S. Department of Treasury is working on a federal backstop for catastrophic losses in the cyber insurance market, adding that the upcoming release of the National Cyber Strategy will provide more details.
Ransomware is down, per reports in the Wall Street Journal. Mandiant security group saw a 15% decrease in ransomware intrusions in 2022 from 2021, and Crowdstrike Holdings saw a drop in average ransom demand amounts from $5.7 million in 2021 to $4.1 million in 2022.
Costs are up too — The price of combating cyber threats has soared the past five years, as median IT security budgets more than tripled to $5.3 million in 2022, compared with $1.4 million in 2018, according to a report by Hiscox.
Before we get too excited, Axios notes how Russia’s criminal underground is regrouping. With the war in Ukraine now a year old, the sentiment is that Russian President Putin has little incentive to slow the groups and more to spur them on. Their current focus remains on Ukraine, as a recent Google report highlights.
Some data about open source, too — Most code bases (84%) contain at least one known open source vulnerability, a 4% increase from last year. This is from the 2023 Open Source Security and Risk Analysis report produced by the Synopsys Cybersecurity Research Center (CyRC).
There’s a connection between AI and security to cover as well. There’s a positive perspective, as some cyber leaders note the ability of tools like ChatGPT to be used for code reviews and finding security vulnerabilities. Others question that premise, including a Cornell study that shows that AI assistants lead to less secure code. That hasn’t stopped hackers, who are also being spotted using the tools for malware writing.
Over half of IT professionals predict that ChatGPT will be used in a successful cyberattack within the year. More than 7 in 10 IT professionals think ChatGPT is a potential cybersecurity threat and are concerned, according to the survey.
Changes in insurance to come – and the government as a player in the space as well. Ultimately, financial motivation is going to drive behaviors. Criminals flock to the money spigot; if that dries up, they will change their approach.