TrendMicro's View on Ransomware and the Threat it Poses to Businesses Worldwide

Ransomware has graduated from being scareware that locks the screens of its victims to a sophisticated malware that locks down the most essential component of a victim’s system—its data. This made ransomware one of the most notorious malware types to prey on unsuspecting users. On May 2015, they detailed how ransomware has evolved into the kind of data kidnapper that it is today, from initial sightings in Russia that hijacks user files to more advanced crypto-ransomware variants that encrypted its victims files in 2013. By the third quarter of 2014, crypto-ransomware accounted for more than a third of all ransomware types found in infected systems, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

In fact, data gathered over the last quarter of 2014 shows that crypto-ransomware variants have increased from 19% to more than 30% in the last 12 months. In the first quarter of 2015, we reported on how ransomware has spread to enterprises and niche users after seeing a rise in CryptoWall-related URLS in the second quarter of the year. As indicated in our collected data, almost 70% of incidents reported hit mostly small and medium-sized businesses, followed by enterprise and the consumer segments. So how big of a threat is ransomware to business and governments around the globe? Share your comments with the Cloud and Cyber Security Center.