Over 750,000 ransomware attacks HK firms monthly

Ransomwares like Revil and TrickBot were the usual suspect.

More than 750,000 ransomware attacked organisations in Hong Kong every month on average between April and June 2021, cybersecurity firm, Fortinet, reported.

The most frequently detected ransomware over the said period were Revil and TrickBot.

Data from its FortiGuard Labs Global Threat Landscape Report found that also amongst the common trojans and botnets that threatens Hong Kong firms in the second quarter of 2021 are JS/Cryxos.1952!tr Trojan (first found in 2019), Mirai Botnet (first found in 2016), and Gh0st Rat Botnet (first found in 2014).

“The threat attack surface expanded as more companies required employees to work from home during the pandemic,” Cherry Fung, Fortinet’s regional director for Hong Kong, Macau, and Mongolia, said.

“An automated security fabric platform has become essential for organizations with increasingly complex network environments and a dramatically increasing number of endpoints.”

The FortiGuard Labs also reported that in the second half of 2020, ransomware attacks increased seven times as the work and school shifted to a remote setup.

Fung said the platform minimises risk through broad visibility and control over the entire potential digital attack surface.

Through machine learning, the platform is automated to identify new cyber threats and enable speedy prevention, detection, and responses, she added.