Pinoys ‘cyber harassed’ 20x more in 2022: report

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Cyber extortion and ransomware attacks in the Philippines have surged by almost 60 percent in 2022 compared to the prior year, according to the latest report of Palo Alto Networks Unit.

In a statement, Palo Alto Networks Unit said ransomware and extortion cases in the Philippines increased by 57.4 percent in 2022, with 11 reported cases across key sectors.

It noted more aggressive tactics by threat actors to pressure organizations, with harassment being involved 20 times more often than in 2021, based on Unit 42 incident response cases.

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This harassment is typically carried out via phone calls and emails targeting a specific individual, often in the C-suite, or even customers, to pressure them into paying a ransom demand, Palo Alto Networks Unit said.

The data is based on the 2023 Unit 42 ransomware and extortion report that compiled findings from Unit 42’s incident response work from approximately 1,000 cases in the past 18 months.

The Philippines took up the fourth spot in Southeast Asia, alongside Malaysia, with 11 reported ransomware attacks and a 57.4 percent surge, accounting for around 12 percent of the attacks in the region.

Manufacturing, professional and legal services as well as state and local governments are still the most targeted sectors in the Philippines.

The Philippines trailed behind Thailand (28), Singapore (18) and Indonesia (14) in the list of the most attacked countries, but it was ahead of Vietnam (9).

Meanwhile, the total number of ransomware attacks in Asia-Pacific increased by 35 percent to 302.

Ransomware groups have been observed layering extortion techniques for greater impact, with the goal of applying more pressure on organizations to pay the ransom.

Some of these tactics include encryption, data theft, distributed denial of service (DDoS) and harassment. Data theft, which is often associated with dark web leak sites, was the most common of the extortion tactics, with 70 percent of groups using it by late 2022 — a 30 percentage point increase from the year prior.

Every day, Unit 42 researchers see an average of seven new ransomware victims posted on leak sites — equating to one new victim every four hours.

In 53 percent of Unit 42’s ransomware incidents involving negotiation, ransomware groups have threatened to leak data stolen from organizations on their leak site websites, Palo Alto Networks Unit added.

This activity has been seen from a mix of new and legacy groups, indicating that new actors are entering the landscape to cash in as legacy groups have done. Established groups like BlackCat, LockBit and others contributed to 57 percent of the leaks, with new groups trailing close behind with 43 percent.

In 2022, 30 organizations on the Forbes Global 2000 list were publicly impacted by extortion attempts. Since 2019, at least 96 of these organizations have had confidential files publicly exposed to some degree as part of attempted extortion.

At least 75 percent of ransomware attacks fielded by Unit 42’s incident response team resulted from attack surface exposures.

 

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