New Ransomware Trends Causing Fear in 2021

The pandemic crisis is giving endless opportunities for digital inclusion, and at the same time, it brings potential challenges for businesses. Security is one of the most concerning issues at this time. As the lockdown situation has activated work from home and online operations, security threats are also increasing. The fraudsters are roaming in the digital space to find loopholes and curb the risks of high-scale data breaches and other cyberattacks. Small business IT services companies are investing massively in security practices to protect the business from any digital fraud.

The tricks of cybercriminals are innovating with each passage day. They employ advanced technologies to breach the system of an organization. Some massive data breaches have been recorded in the past year. This article describes some common ransomware trends that are causing fear in the digital world in 2021.

Digital Fraud

With an increase in work from home and lockdown situation all across the globe, people starting preferring online payments and shopping. As a result of this, the fraudsters found endless opportunities to find loopholes in the system and steal payments of people from transits. Digital payment fraud has therefore increased. The hackers impersonate as if they are calling or emailing you from an authentic source and take your credentials. As a result, they dive into your bank account and make transfers to their accounts. In this way, the transaction takes place. It is crucial to make sure that the email you are getting is from a reliable source and the hackers adopt the same interface and design that fools the end user.

Credential Stuffing

We use passwords to protect our online accounts. The malicious actors try different techniques and methods to breach the passwords and use all your personal information for various malicious activities. The legitimate accounts of users are hacked by cybercriminals and they leave no trace for it and the attack remains undetected. Business IT Consulting services companies can use behavioral analysis tools to identify credential stuffing attacks and password breaches.

The logins and the passwords of the user are all processed in browsers. No matter how much stronger passwords you are using, the attackers have special tools and tricks to bypass them. For instance, through credential stuffing techniques, the hackers try different combinations of usernames and passwords and find the match. The stuffing algorithm has high processing power such that it could check the credentials in a matter of seconds.

Remote Access Trojans

The digital space is prone to so many risks. The business IT support services should ensure enhanced protection over all the processes and procedures such that the attacks could be mitigated. Although phishing emails are still one of the major categories of cyberattacks to which many users become victims. However, now a significant increase in remote access trojans (RAT) has been noticed. RAT programs are invisible as they are run behind the scripts of programs. The programs unknowingly impersonate the user’s computer and steal sensitive information. Some potential programs tend to transfer gigabytes of data from computers to the servers, get the credentials, record audio and videos of the users.

Attacks on Healthcare Institutions

A significant increase in healthcare data breaches is noticed in the past year. With the rise in pandemic crisis, the fraudsters have targeted the databases of the healthcare industry to get the record of patients and access to their confidential information. Cybercriminals are interested in ordinary clinics and the data from research institutions. They steal the data and sell it on the dark market. This is a high-risk threat to the industry as it could lose the lives of many patients.

Conclusion

The year 2021 is very challenging for every industry operating in the digital environment. The potential cyberattacks and threats to the industry call for stringent security measures that could fight back against the innovative plans of fraudsters. As the number of attacks is growing in the year, the online user should be vigilant when it comes to making payments online.