India gets a Google shock! One of the worst affected nations

Since the Covid-19 pandemic forced the world to go digital, ransomware attacks have increased dramatically. According to a new report commissioned by Google, ransomware attacks on Indian computers have risen substantially in recent years. There have been at least 130 types of ransomware active since 2020, according to VirusTotal’s report. Ransomware has affected governments in every continent except Antarctica. Here are the top 10 countries affected:

•  Israel
•  South Korea
•  Vietnam
•  China
•  Singapore
•  India
•  Kazakhstan
• Philippines
•  Iran
• UK

 

According to data from the FBI, these ten countries have suffered the most ransomware attacks. When it comes to attacks based on geospatial information, Israel saw an increase of nearly 600 percent when compared with its baseline. The United Kingdom remains in second place, followed by South Korea, Vietnam, China, Singapore, India, Kazakhstan, Philippines, and Iran. Furthermore, the report titled Ransomware Activity Report indicates that the GandCrab ransomware was particularly active during the first two quarters of 2020.

The report described a constant baseline, excluding GandCrab, showing several peaks, notably in Q1 2021, and another significant peak around July 2021, since it is related to Babuk ransomware. VirusTotal reported that it identified more than 130 ransomware families, out of which Wannacry was ranked among the top 10. It’s possible this is an outdated detection, but some current ransomware families can still be affected by it. According to the report, ‘we do not believe there is another round of Wannacry attacks on the horizon’.

Top 10 Most active Ransomware families

•  Gandcrab
•  Wannacry
•  Locky
•  Babuk
•  Rkor
•  Teslacrypt
• Cerber
• Ryuk
• Matsnu
• Congur.

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GandCrab had an extremely high peak in Q1 2020 that drastically declined afterwards. According to the report, GandCrab is still active but at a different order of magnitude in terms of the number of fresh samples. While Babuk was on top of the chart in July 2021, the rest of its family is almost invisible.