VirusTotal Releases Ransomware Report Based on Analysis of 80 Million Samples

From thehackernews.com

As many as 130 different ransomware families have been found to be active in 2020 and the first half of 2021, with Israel, South Korea, Vietnam, China, Singapore, India, Kazakhstan, Philippines, Iran, and the U.K. emerging as the most affected territories, a comprehensive analysis of 80 million ransomware-related samples has revealed.

Google’s cybersecurity arm VirusTotal attributed a significant chunk of the activity to the GandCrab ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group (78.5%), followed by Babuk (7.61%), Cerber (3.11%), Matsnu (2.63%), Wannacry (2.41%), Congur (1.52%), Locky (1.29%), Teslacrypt (1.12%), Rkor (1.11%), and Reveon (0.70%).

“Attackers are using a range of approaches, including well-known botnet malware and other Remote Access Trojans (RATs) as vehicles to deliver their ransomware,” VirusTotal Threat Intelligence Strategist Vicente Diaz said. “In most cases, they are using fresh or new ransomware samples for their campaigns.”

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