McAfee Enterprise Advanced Threat Research Report: Ransomware’s Increasing Prevalence

The increasing prevalence of ransomware tops the findings of the McAfee Enterprise Advanced Threat Research Report: October 2021 released today.

While ransomware continues to hold cybersecurity headlines hostage, so much has changed since our last threat report. After shutting down the Colonial Pipeline, DarkSide created the appearance of walking away after attracting government scrutiny, thinking we would miss the (alleged) connection to BlackMatter.

Our Advanced Threat Research team also made a move to McAfee Enterprise, a newly dedicated Enterprise Cybersecurity company. While we will no longer publish our work under McAfee Labs, you can still find and follow our research on our new McAfee Enterprise ATR Twitter feed: @McAfee_ATR.

We’ve shifted the primary focus of our new Threat Report from frequency to prevalence. Our team is now paying attention to how often we see the threat around the globe and, more importantly, who it targets.

While DarkSide attempted to step out of the spotlight, other ransomware families including REvil/Sodinokibi, Ryuk, and Babuk wreaked havoc from among DarkSide’s shadow. In response, this threat report offers a deep dive into ransomware’s increasing prevalence including ransomware family detections and the delta of data between open-source intelligence and telemetry.

Our McAfee Enterprise team also offers research and analysis on relevant threat topics including:

• Cloud Threats – Continuing threat trends targeting a remote workforce
• B Braun – Our team’s uncovering of healthcare vulnerabilities in a globally used infusion pump
• MITRE ATT&CK Techniques – Top techniques used in Q2 2021
• How to Defend – Resources designed to help your enterprise defend itself from the latest threats

Once you’ve consumed the research and findings in this report, don’t forget our MVISION Insights preview dashboard which updates and profiles the most prevalent threats, offering a knowledge base that includes targeted countries and sectors along with proactive solutions to help your enterprise stay ahead of emerging threats.

We welcome your feedback about this threat report and what you would like to see in the next report.