Is the drop in ransomware numbers an illusion?

August 17, 2022 – Published on The Washington Post

For years, ransomware has been one of the chief scourges of cyberspace, robbing victims of billions, sparking panics for beef and gasoline and maybe even contributing to the death of a child.

In recent months, though, tallies of ransomware — a kind of cyberattack where hackers encrypt a victim’s system, then demand payment to unlock it —  have shown signs of decline. 

So what’s behind the diminished figures?

The short answer is: It might be less about whether the number of attacks have fallen off, and more about whether the people who do the counting have less information about what’s happening than before. 

If it’s not an illusion, analysts can point to a host of potential factors explaining the drop. Either way, by no means do the numbers suggest ransomware is significantly less rampant.

One of the first tallies pointing to a decline came last month from the Ransomware Task Force, made up of experts from government, industry, academia and nonprofits. It documented 64 attacks on local government, hospitals and schools in 2022 to that point, compared with 150 incidents from the same period last year.

Also in July, SonicWall, NCC Group and GuidePoint Security pointed to decreases across the board, although the companies covered various time periods. Not all companies had identical conclusions. Ransomware incidents increased from the first quarter of 2022 to the second, Avast said last week. But even Avast had seen decreasing numbers from the end of last year and the beginning of this year.

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