India ranks 2nd in cloud ransomware incidents; lack of security skills top concern for APJ orgs

Cybersecurity solutions provider McAfee has revealed that in the second quarter of 2021, India ranked second in cloud ransomware incidents, after the United States. 

The McAfee threat report also showed that more than 73% of all ransomware detections in the Q2 of 2021 were related to a certain REvil/Sodinokibi family, along with a sharp surge in another type of ransomware called as the DarkSide.   

“Names such as REvil, Ryuk, Babuk, and DarkSide have permeated into public consciousness, linked to disruptions of critical services worldwide,” said Raj Samani, McAfee Enterprise fellow and chief scientist.    

The second quarter of 2021 saw continued challenges of shifting cloud security to accommodate a hybrid workforce. Among ten countries, including India, financial services were the most targeted, followed by healthcare, manufacturing retail and professional services.   

Talking specifically about ransomware, the most targeted sector was the government, followed by telecom, energy and media and communications.  

Spam also noticed a sharp uptick, increasing by 250% in the quarter.   

In a separate report by Sunnyvale, California based network security solutions provider Fortinet.  Ransomware has grown by 1070% over the past year.  

Not surprisingly, 85% of the respondents said that they were more concerned about a ransomware attack as compared to other types of cyberattacks.   

“There is a huge opportunity for the adoption of technology solutions like segmentation, SD-WAN, ZTNA, as well as SEG and EDR, to help protect against the threat of ransomware,” said Rajesh Maurya, regional vice president, India & SAARC at Fortinet.  

Among all geographies, the Asia Pacific Japan region cited the lack of user awareness and training as a top hindrance to mitigating threats.   

The report also showed that APJ organisations were 78% likely to be affected by ransomware, compared to 59% in North America and 58% in EMEA.