There are now over 250 different ransomware families currently operational worldwide

In its latest monthly threat debrief, security vendor Bitdefender has shared that its researchers have now identified 250 different ransomware families, some more notorious and active than others.

The report is based on the analysis of 19.8 million malware detections during the month of August 2021.

“To give you some idea of the scale, our Labs operations discover 400+ new threats each minute and validate 30 billion threat queries daily,” shares Bitdefender.

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Compiled amidst the hiatus of REvil, the report notes that the top three ransomware families in August, namely WannaCryptor, Stop/DJVU, and Phobo, account for over 60% of all detections. 

Global threat

Bitdefender tracked ransomware incidents from all over the world with detections in August from 174 countries.

The United States emerged as the favorite target accounting for 30% of all attacks, with India in the runners-up spot attracting 17% of all campaigns, closely followed by Brazil at 15%.

Of all the detections, almost 40% of the campaigns have been assigned to specific industries. Over half of these campaigns (51%) have targeted the telecommunications services sector. 

Interestingly, while campaigns against utilities, such as the one against Colonial Pipeline indirectly impact a large number of people, in the grander scheme of things they only make up a mere 1% of all the attacks.

“Adversaries sometimes take a break, but they often re-emerge with an improved toolkit utilizing a new name. In the case of REvil, we expect to see more targeted attacks,” the researchers conclude.

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