Last year, ransomware attacks resulted in record-breaking crypto payments of over $1 billion from individuals and various institutions.
According to Chainalysis analysts, ransomware got over $1 billion in cryptocurrency payments from victims last year, a significant increase from the $567 million in losses reported in 2022.
The success of cybercriminals is attributed to the growing complexity of their attacks and targeting of large organizations. For example, similar security incidents were recorded at the BBC and British Airways. Almost 80% of the total ransom payments consisted of transactions exceeding $1 million.
The situation was also influenced by the development of the Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) market and the growth in the number of attackers. Examples of such software include Phobos and ALPHV-BlackCat. The use of such products enables more mass attacks, involving large criminal syndicates, smaller hacker groups, and individual attackers.
Analysts mention Cl0p as one of the most notable viruses. It exploited zero-day vulnerabilities in MOVEit, a file transfer software widely used by many IT companies. The compromise resulted in collecting over $100 million in ransom. In 2023, 538 new variants of ransomware were recorded.
Approximately one-third of all stolen funds are sent to centralized crypto exchanges. It was recently revealed that an AI service can generate fake documents for passing KYC procedures on such platforms for just $15.
