September was a record month for ransomware attacks in 2023

Ransomware activity successful September reached unprecedented levels pursuing a comparative lull successful August that was still measurement supra regular standards for summertime months.

According to NCC Group data, ransomware groups launched 514 attacks successful September. This surpasses March 2023 activity, which counted 459 attacks, and was heavy skewed by Clop's MOVEit Transfer information theft attacks.

Clop had virtually nary activity successful September, which whitethorn beryllium a motion nan blase ransomware pack is preparing for its adjacent large attack. 

However, nan grounds was achieved by different threat groups, led by LockBit 3.0 (79 attacks), LostTrust (53), and BlackCat (47).

LostTrust is simply a caller threat character successful nan list, making a move entranceway consecutive to 2nd place.

Believed to beryllium a rebrand of MetaEncryptor owed to important codification overlaps, LostTrust has already encrypted nan networks of galore organizations, immoderate of whom knowledgeable information leaks, too.

RansomedVC, a newcomer successful extortion attacks employing GDPR reporting threats, is successful NCC's 4th spot pinch 44 attacks. However, it should beryllium noted that immoderate of nan attacks claimed by Ransomed were later recovered to beryllium exaggerated.

This intends that astir 1 retired of 5 attacks successful September came from a caller ransomware operation, highlighting their aggressiveness and capacity for scale.

Recorded ransomware attacks (NCC Group)

In position of targeted regions, North America took nan lion's stock pinch 50%, Europe followed pinch 30%, and Asia was 3rd pinch 9%.

The astir targeted sectors were 'industrials' (construction, engineering, commercialized services) pinch 169 attacks, 'consumer cyclicals' (retail, media, hotels) pinch 94, exertion (software and IT services, networking, telecommunications) pinch 52, and healthcare pinch 38.

Most targeted sectors successful September 2023 (NCC Group)

2023 connected a grounds trajectory

NCC's study highlights that from January 2023 until September 2023, it has recorded astir 3,500 attacks, and it's now apt that nan last fig will beryllium adjacent to 4,000 by nan extremity of nan year.

Another study by Chainalysis from earlier this twelvemonth predicted 2023 to beryllium a record-breaking twelvemonth for ransomware payments based connected projected data.

Despite nan continuous efforts by rule enforcement to curb nan problem, which has matured, ransomware remains a shape-shifting threat that bombards organizations pinch ever-improving first entree methods and progressively covert strategies and payloads.