2022 has been a turbulent year. One good thing about this is that ransomware profits have dropped significantly.
Attacks on the crypto industry remain rampant. However, the data suggests that victims are increasingly refusing to pay ransomware attackers. Blockchain analysis company Chainalysis, in a new report, shed light on the changing dynamics in the ransomware industry.
Zooming in on ransomware attacks 2022
It found that more than 10,000 unique strains were active in the first half of the year alone, a trend that was also confirmed by on-chain data. By comparison, around 5,400 active unique strains were recorded during the same period of 2021. The number of active strains has increased substantially in recent years, however a significant portion goes to a small group of strains at any given time.
Ransomware’s lifespan was shortened in 2022. In fact, the average ransomware strain was found to be active for just 70 days, up from 153 in 2021 and 265 in 2020. Most attackers funnel extorted funds to major centralized cryptocurrency exchanges. This number increased from 39.3% in 2021 to 48.3% in 2022.
On the other hand, ill-gotten funds moving to high-risk exchanges fell from 10.9% to 6.7%. A similar downward trend was observed in the use of illicit services, such as dark web markets, for ransomware money laundering. However, the use of coin mixers for the same purpose has increased from 11.6% to 15.0%.
Less frequent ransom payments
Chainalysis stated that the estimate for total 2022 ransomware revenue fell 40.3% to at least $456.8 million in 2022 from $765.6 million in 2021. The drop is substantial and demonstrated a growing unwillingness among victims to pay ransomware attackers and not a decrease in the actual number. of feats.
Stating that ransomware continues to be a significant cyber threat to businesses and businesses, Michael Phillips, director of claims at cyber insurance firm Resilience, noted:
“However, there have been signs that significant disruptions against ransomware actor groups are resulting in lower-than-expected successful extortion attempts.”
Especially in the last four years, the probability of victims paying a ransom has undergone a drastic change. An analysis by Bill Siegel, CEO of ransomware incident response company Coveware, suggested that victim payout rates dropped from 76% in 2019 to 41% in 2022.
This change can be attributed to the fact that paying ransoms has become legally riskier, especially after the advisory issued by the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in September 2021 about the potential of sanctions violations when paying ransoms.
Another important factor that plays a crucial role in the developing trend is the reimbursement of victims of ransomware attacks by cyber insurance companies. Phillips stressed that companies must adhere to strict cybersecurity and backup measures to be insured against ransomware coverage. The demand for better cybersecurity measures has made it possible for companies to recover from attacks instead of giving in to ransom demands.
“Increased focus on underwriting contributing factors to ransomware has led to lower incident costs for businesses and has contributed to a declining trend in extortion payments.”
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