SonicWall has published the “2022 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report.” The bi-annual report details a sustained rise in ransomware with 623.3 million attacks globally. Nearly all monitored threats, cyberattacks and malicious digital assaults rose in 2021 including: ransomware, encrypted threats, IoT malware and crypto jacking.
“Cyberattacks become more attractive and potentially more disastrous as dependence on information technology increases,” said SonicWall President and CEO Bill Conner. “Securing information in a boundless world is a near impossible and thankless job, especially as the boundaries of organizations are ever-expanding to limitless endpoints and networks.”
SonicWall Capture Labs threat researchers tracked the dramatic rise in ransomware, recording an astounding 318.6 million more ransomware attacks than 2020, a 105 percent increase. Ransomware volume has risen 232 percent since 2019.
High-profile ransomware attacks impacted businesses, state and federal governments, schools, hospitals and even individuals. Attacks hit supply chains, causing widespread system downtime, economic loss and reputational damage. Following global trends, all industries faced large increases of ransomware volume, including government, health care, education and retail.
The frequency and variety of cyberattacks expands every year, with an increasing cost to organizations worldwide. SMBs and enterprises are threatened by an assortment of cyberattacks, and without knowing what they are, or how cybercriminals operate, protecting business-critical data from cyberattacks becomes unmanageable.
“Attacks on networks rose to a fever pitch in 2021,” said SonicWall Vice President of Platform Architecture Dmitriy Ayrapetov. “Ransomware, crypto jacking, vulnerability exploitation, phishing and other attacks continue to plague organizations around the world and overwhelm security teams. It’s important to understand the breakdown of these attacks and why they continue to be successful, as well as the drivers and trends behind them.”
Insight on additional cyber threats include:
- Apache Log4j vulnerabilities were exploited with threat actors logging 142.2 million exploit attempts between Dec. 11 and Jan. 31 — an average of 2.7 million each day. Within three days of the public disclosure, exploit attempts had passed the 1 million mark.
- Malware volume was down in 2021, marking a third-straight year of decrease as well as a seven-year low. However, an uptick in attacks during the second half of 2021 almost erased the 22 percent drop in malware that SonicWall had recorded at the mid-year point, bringing the total decrease for 2021 to just 4 percent — suggesting malware numbers may rebound in 2022.
- Encrypted threats increased 167 percent year-over-year. In August, the number of encrypted attacks broke the 1 million mark for the first time, then continued to rise, reaching nearly 2.5 million by year’s end.
- Crypto jacking continued to surge, rising 19 percent globally to 97.1 million, which is the most attacks SonicWall Capture Labs threat researchers have ever recorded in a single year.
- IoT malware volume rose 6 percent in 2021, totaling 60.1 million hits by year’s end. While this isn’t good news, it’d better than it has been: In 2019 and 2020, IoT malware volume rose 218 percent and 66 percent, respectively. With no corresponding slowdown in the proliferation of connected devices, this suggests attack volumes may be leveling off.
SonicWall’s patented Real-Time Deep Memory Inspection (RTDMI) technology identified 442,151 never-before-seen malware variants in 2021, a 65 percent year-over-year increase and an average of 1,211 per day. In Q4, RTDMI found more never-before-seen malware variants than in any quarter since its introduction in 2018.
To learn more about SonicWall and get the complete 2022 SonicWall Cyber Threat Report, visit sonicwall.com/ThreatReport.
