The 2022 Modern Bank Heists Report 5.0, VMware Security’s annual report interviewing financial and security leaders on their experiences with cybercriminal cartels, showed an alarming increase in destructive cyber attacks.
With 2022 being dubbed the year of ransomware and Remote Access Tools (RAT), the report showed some of the more concerning stats regarding this new wave of cybersecurity issues.
Of all the leaders interviewed, a whopping 74% had experienced one or more ransomware attacks in the last year, and 63% said they had paid the ransom.
Looking to financial institutions particularly, 63% had an increase in destructive cyber attacks experienced, and 60% saw an increased number of experiences with ‘island hopping’, a method involving attacking an organization’s third-party partners in order to gain access to the network.
In order to combat this wave of attacks, the majority of financial institutes plan to increase their budgets by 20-30% this year, prioritising extended detection and response (XDR) and workload/mobile security.
Rick McElroy, principal cybersecurity strategist for VMware, said: “In a crypto-based world, consumers should assume a certain level of responsibility in the protection of their cryptocurrency. There are no assurances that cybercriminals won’t target the exchanges, the warm wallets or cold storage.”
“Assume wherever the money is, there will also be criminals trying to steal it.”
