The Increasing Threat of Ransomware in 2017

Since January 1, 2016, Symantec’s Security Response group has seen an average of more than 4,000 ransomware attacks per day: a 300 percent increase over 2015, according to its 2016 Internet Security Threat Report.

Most organizations rely on low-overhead prevention techniques, such as firewall and antivirus solutions or intrusion prevention to mitigate threats like these. However, these tools are insufficient, and breach data shows that detection and incident response must be improved.

And as attackers continue to use social engineering and social networks to target sensitive roles or individuals within an organization to get to data, the need for comprehensive security education will become even more critical.

If security policies and technologies don’t take these vectors into account, ransomware will continue to seep in.

Then there’s also the issue of detection. Some attackers can reside within a company’s environments for months, often moving laterally within environments, and silos between network, edge, endpoint and data security systems and processes can restrict an organization’s ability to prevent, detect and respond to advanced attacks.

Finally, new attack surfaces (i.e. IaaS, SaaS and IoT) are still so new that organizations don’t know the best way to secure them yet

Companies will need to be vigilant and prepared to protect themselves against these threats and come out on top this year.