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Ransomware has been part of the cyber crime ecosystem since the late 1980s and remains a major threat in the cyber landscape today. Evolving ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly more sophisticated as threat actors leverage vulnerabilities, social engineering and insider threats. While the future of ransomware is full of unknown threats, we can look to the past and recent trends to predict the future.

While the first ransomware incident was observed in 1989, ransomware attacks rapidly escalated in 2005.

Ransomware continues to be a relevant threat in todays environment. Since 2021, ransomware groups have become more sophisticated by updating their tactics, forming new groups, finding new targets and taking advantage of outside factors. These changes are important for ransomware groups to stay ahead of security measures and help secure larger ransom payments.

Tactics, techniques and procedure (TTP) changes

Groups still employ double extortion tactics; however, certain groups now use triple extortion and quadruple extortion tactics to convince victims to pay ransom. Triple extortion increases the potential of a victim paying the ransom, especially for critical infrastructure organizations. In triple extortion, threat actors threaten distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in addition to encrypting systems and exposing data if a ransom is not paid, potentially resulting in long periods of downtime for public-private interdependent sectors like the government, healthcare or utilities. In comparison to triple extortion, quadruple extortion pressures victims by contacting customers and business partners, informing them that their sensitive information has been stolen. This adds another layer of pressure for the victims to pay.

To gain initial access to victims, ransomware groups employ various methods, including contacting individuals who work within the target organization (insider threat), posting advertisements requesting initial access to a specific target and working with initial access brokers who sell existing access to various targets.

According to CrowdStrike, 2022 saw an increase in initial access broker offerings, with more than 2,500 posts offering initial access and the top sector offerings for these posts, including academia and technology companies. This was a 112% increase in comparison to 2021, making it clear that ransomware groups have an interest in purchasing initial access instead of doing it on their own.

Even more new ransomware groups

Many factors could have led to the increase in new ransomware groups, including affiliates working for more than one group and code leaks. Since 2021, many observed ransomware source code and builder leaks have enabled groups with little-to-no experience to create or modify their ransomware. Code leaks, including Babuk, Conti, Lockbit3.0 and Chaos, have allowed new groups to produce more frequent attacks, thereby changing the threat landscape. However, researchers have observed that groups that use these leaked builders tend to ask for a lower ransom payment. This may indicate that these groups are trying to avoid attention while testing their new variants.

Targeting Linux and ESXi machines

Ransomware groups continue to target operating systems and platforms such as Linux or ESXi machines. These are prime targets because they often host file servers, databases and web servers. Groups will also create Linux encryption with the purpose of specifically encrypting ESXi virtual machines. Linux continues to be the most popular operating system for embedded, constrained and Internet of Things devices used by critical infrastructure sectors like manufacturing and energy. In addition, attacks on Linux systems increased by 75% in 2022 and will likely continue to increase in the latter half of 2023.

Influence of global and geopolitical factors

Recent global and geopolitical factors have also influenced the increase in ransomware attacks. Global factors, including COVID-19, made the healthcare sector an appealing target, whether to obtain information on vaccines or an opportunistic attack where overwhelmed hospitals were more likely to pay a ransom. Geopolitical tensions and sanctions also continue to influence ransomware attacks. APT groups linked to governments in Russia, North Korea and China have utilized ransomware for financial gain and disruption.

Ransomware attacks will continue to evolve and become more sophisticated, advanced and targeted. Threat actors are mastering a new technique where attackers exploit vulnerabilities in the supply chain to launch large extortion campaigns. For instance, this year, Cl0p ransomware infiltrated MOVEit, a secure managed file transfer application, which continues to impact hundreds of companies. For a bigger payout, threat actors will likely continue to find initial access to companies that many organizations rely on.

There will likely be an increase in cloud-aware ransomware due to companies continuing to move their critical data into cloud storage. Ransomware groups could exploit cloud services, applications and infrastructure to gain initial access. It is an attractive opportunity for threat actors due to the larger amounts of critical information available to target and hold for ransom.

Groups will continue to use intermittent encryption, a process where only parts of files are encrypted. The encryption is able to avoid products like endpoint security and extended detection and response, which makes it harder for a security system to detect it. By only encrypting specific lines of data, intermittent encryption also enables a faster decryption process, which might entice a victim to pay the ransom.

Encryptionless ransom attacks will also continue; these are known as extortion or data theft attacks. These attacks have been used for many years and continue to trend up and down, depending on the need and threat actor sophistication. In these attacks, groups steal data and threaten to expose it instead of encrypting it.

With the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI models like ChatGPT, ransomware groups will likely follow the trend and utilize AI tools like chatbots, AI-developed malware, automated processes and machine learning algorithms. AI will likely help groups develop more advanced and sophisticated techniques to evade current ransomware prevention and guidance. We can expect all types of ransomware threat actors to leverage AI to help them complete successful attacks.

Looking back on the evolution of ransomware makes one thing clear: the future of cybersecurity is likely to be as unpredictable as its past. Still, the history of ransomware attacks offers much to learn. By maintaining a solid and adaptable cybersecurity strategy, organizations have a better chance of navigating the challenges to come.

Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst - IBM

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The evolution of ransomware: Lessons for the future - Security Intelligence