Europol still deems ransomware number one threat

On September 13, 2023, Europol published its yearly strategy sheet on organized cybercrime, the Internet Organized Crime Threat Assessment. According to the report, ransomware remains the main cyber threat against “multinational corporations, government institutions, critical infrastructure and essential services.”

Europol outlines the evolution of the threat, which is responding to the improvement of large organizations’ cyber protection practices. Indeed, the latter tend to systematically back up essential data offline, thus reducing the role of encryption.

Some ransomware groups have reacted by prioritizing the theft of sensitive data (sometimes without encrypting) and threatening to release it if targets do not pay. Moreover, according to Europol, this change feeds into a “booming data black market.”

The agency also forecasts an increase of ransomware attacks in the European Union in the years to come. In order to deal with the threat, it calls for a speedy strengthening of European and international cooperation on the issue.