UK FINANCIAL DATA AT RISK
Can you guess how many Brits had their financial data compromised last year? According to the London-headquartered international law firm RPC, more than 42 million. That’s more than 75% of the adults in the country. RPC also claimed that financial data breaches had increased by a whopping 1777% – or a factor of almost 2000 – compared to 2020 when only 2.2 million individuals were victims of digital violations involving financial data.
RANSOMWARE THE CULPRIT
RFC also accessed data from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) relating to organisations that suffered a breach, including that of financial data, and stated that this massive spike was partially due to an aggressive increase in ransomware attacks in the UK between June 2020 and June 2021. Richard Breavington, a partner at RPC, explained why the foraging of financial data by cybercriminals was becoming so prevalent and said:
“The surprisingly high number of people whose financial data was impacted in the last year shows how cyberattacks have become endemic. Hackers are continually refining their methods, employing ever more complex techniques to extort money in whatever way they can.”
AND THOSE THAT DON’T PAY?
Breavington also added that if a victim refused to pay the ransom, cybercrooks would threaten to sell the stolen financial data or leak it on the Dark Web. This ploy was becoming increasingly popular as data encryption methods were deemed less effective as UK businesses improved their information backup systems. Breavington, who leads the Cyber & Tech insurance team at RPC, also detailed why some companies still decide to pay up:
“Some businesses, fearing the potential reputational costs, not to mention other consequences, decide that they will take the last-ditch approach of paying the ransom demands. As a result, these attacks have become very lucrative for cybercriminals.”
RANSOMWARE – WHAT CAN YOU DO?
The majority of malware containing ransomware – 90% in fact – is embedded in phishing emails – either as malicious links or downloadable attachments. If you want to protect your financial data, don’t click or download – it’s that simple. Another way that your laptop or PC gets infected with ransomware is by drive-by download attacks. These cyberattacks exploit vulnerabilities in your outdated apps, browsers or operating systems to eavesdrop on user communications, steal session credentials, install keyloggers and botnet toolkits, and deploy ransomware. Sometimes even visiting a compromised website is enough. How do you avoid drive-by? Patch and update your OS, apps and browser. And don’t visit dodgy websites. If you don’t see a lock, it’s not safe.
RANSOMWARE – HOW WE WILL HELP YOU
Your financial data is yours and we want to help you keep it that way. We hate anything that causes IT chaos – and that includes ransomware, data and identity theft, or any cyber exploitation. Zhero offers state-of-the-art cyber protection to crush any risk of your financial data being stolen. Also included in our Protect IT Better strategy is ongoing cyber education and training for your employees. Contact us now. We will deliver better IT faster to make your workplace, IT and data cyber safe.
