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Trends in Security Information
The HSD Trendmonitor is designed to provide access to relevant content on various subjects in the safety and security domain, to identify relevant developments and to connect knowledge and organisations. The safety and security domain encompasses a vast number of subjects. Four relevant taxonomies (type of threat or opportunity, victim, source of threat and domain of application) have been constructed in order to visualize all of these subjects. The taxonomies and related category descriptions have been carefully composed according to other taxonomies, European and international standards and our own expertise.
In order to identify safety and security related trends, relevant reports and HSD news articles are continuously scanned, analysed and classified by hand according to the four taxonomies. This results in a wide array of observations, which we call ‘Trend Snippets’. Multiple Trend Snippets combined can provide insights into safety and security trends. The size of the circles shows the relative weight of the topic, the filters can be used to further select the most relevant content for you. If you have an addition, question or remark, drop us a line at info@securitydelta.nl.
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Ransomware stays relevant amidst digitalisation of workspaces.
In 2021, the IC3 received 3,729 complaints identified as ransomware with adjusted losses
of more than $49.2 million. Ransomware is a type of malicious software, or malware, that
encrypts data on a computer, making it unusable. A malicious cyber criminal holds the data
hostage until the ransom is paid. If the ransom is not paid, the victim’s data remains
unavailable. Cyber criminals may also pressure victims to pay the ransom by threatening to
destroy the victim’s data or to release it to the public.
Ransomware tactics and techniques continued to evolve in 2021, which demonstrates ransomware threat
actors’ growing technological sophistication and an increased ransomware threat to organizations globally.
Although cyber criminals use a variety of techniques to infect victims with ransomware, phishing emails,
Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) exploitation, and exploitation of software vulnerabilities remained the top
three initial infection vectors for ransomware incidents reported to the IC3. Once a ransomware threat
actor has gained code execution on a device or network access, they can deploy ransomware. Note: these
infection vectors likely remain popular because of the increased use of remote work and schooling starting
in 2020 and continuing through 2021. This increase expanded the remote attack surface and left network
defenders struggling to keep pace with routine software patching.