Extensive analysis of cyberthreats in 2020 reveals a 91% jump in attacks on industrial companies and a 54% rise in malware-related attacks compared to 2019, according to Positive Technologies‘ latest report Cybersecurity Threatscape 2020. Medical institutions ranked first in ransomware attacks.

The total number of incidents grew by 51% compared to 2019. Seven out of 10 attacks were targeted. The most popular targets were government institutions (19%), industrial companies (12%) and medical institutions (9%).

In most cases, industrial companies were attacked by ransomware variants such as RansomExx, Netwalker, Clop, Maze, Ragnar Locker, LockBit, DoppelPaymer, and Snake (which deletes shadow copies before starting the encryption process, and has the ability to stop ICS-related processes). However, industrial companies were also attacked by many APT groups.

CIS countries still suffer from the RTM group; in 2020, the PT Expert Security Center detected over 100 phishing emails sent by this group.

Malware is becoming even more favored by for attackers—the past year saw an increase of 54% over 2019. Malware developers devised elaborate methods for concealing their actions and refined delivery techniques, turning their attention to vulnerabilities on the network perimeter. Attacks against individuals mainly built on spyware and banking trojans, while organizations were increasingly attacked by ransomware.

Ransomware was used in 45% of all malware-related attacks against organizations. Medical institutions ranked first in the number of ransomware attacks (17%), followed by government institutions (16%) and industrial companies (15%).