• Chart: Crypto ransom payments skyrocket in 2020

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Up to 1,500 companies worldwide have been affected by a large-scale ransomware attack targeting a popular IT management tool from US software company Kaseya. The targeted software, a tool called VSA, is widely used by IT service providers to manage the IT infrastructure of small businesses, making it more difficult to assess the full impact of the Friday attack.

To date, we know that less than 60 Kaseya customers, all of whom used the on-premise VSA product, have been directly compromised by this attack. While many of these customers provide IT services to several other companies, we understand that the total impact so far has been on less than 1,500 downstream companies, Kaseya wrote in a statement Monday, advising customers to keep the VSA servers offline until further notice.

According to a Reuters report, the attack mainly crippled small businesses around the world, with a Swedish supermarket chain forced to close hundreds of stores among the biggest victims. The group claiming responsibility for the attack, a Russia-linked cybercrime collective called REvil, has demanded $ 70 million to restore the data it holds as a ransom, making it one of the biggest attacks in the world. ransomware to date.

Ransomware attacks have become more common and costly in recent years. According to Chainalysis, a blockchain data platform that tracks cryptocurrency payments to known ransomware addresses, victims paid more than $ 400 million in ransom last year, a jump of 337% from in total of 2019. 2020 will forever be known as the year of Covid, but when it comes to crypto crime, it’s also the year ransomware took off, Chainalysis writes in its 2021 Crypto Crime Report. As the following graph shows, ransomware attacks show no signs of slowing down in 2021. In the first five months of the year, victims have already transferred over $ 80 million to cybercriminals, almost the total. of the year 2019.

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