- Ransomware attacks continue to affect many organizations even though there have been a lot of warnings and meetings about preventing them.
- Many organizations seem to be the target of these attacks including local governments, universities, and healthcare providers.
- In most cases, attacks are kept hidden from law enforcement and the public, especially in the private sector, which means that there is a lack of statistical information about how often this type of malware is used.
Ransomware attacks in 2022 have affected more than 100 organizations in the United States. Although that is a big number, the reports show them to be around the same as last year. Even though many steps were taken to prevent these attacks, the situation does not seem to be getting better. Cybersecurity company Emsisoft has compiled statistics to show who has been the target of these attacks.
Statistics hard to gather in cyberattacks
Emsisoft states that it is difficult to gather statistics on cyberattacks as not all of them get reported and when they are, they seem to be lower than the actual amount of attacks. The target of these attacks have been reported to be:
- 105 local governments
- 44 universities and colleges
- 45 school districts operating 1,981 schools
- 25 healthcare providers operating 290 hospitals
Emsisoft found that in 2022, Quincy, MA was the only known local government to pay the hackers who had stolen $500,000 from them. In 2022, there were 105 ransomware attacks on different state or municipal governments. This is an increase from the number of 77 ransomware attacks in 2021. In 2021, 88 education sector organizations were impacted by ransomware. However, this number increased in 2022, when there were a total of 1,981 organizations impacted. This means that there are more schools potentially affected in 2022 than in 2021.
There were 25 cases where hospitals or multi-hospital health systems were potentially impacted by cyberattacks. This could mean that care could not be given to patients at up to 290 different hospitals.
The fact that there hasn’t been a decrease in the number of ransomware, and an increase in some cases, even though there have been steps to prevent them appears to be worrisome for the cybersecurity of important institutions.