Cybercriminals have refined their strategies to capitalie on vulnerabilities arising from business mergers, acquisitions, and the consolidation of software vendors, according to the Midyear 2024 Cyber Risk Report by Resilience, a leading cyber risk solutions company.
The report highlights how these factors have opened new avenues for widespread ransomware attacks, where threat actors exploit a single point of failure within interconnected systems or newly acquired companies, leading to devastating impacts, including halting entire economic sectors.
The report, released today, is based on data from Resilience’s Threat Intelligence team and its insurance claims portfolio, offering insights into the latest trends in cyberattacks and industry responses. Key findings include:
- Ransomware Dominance: Since January 2023, ransomware has been the primary cause of loss, with 64% of related claims resulting in financial damage. The financial impact of ransomware-related claims surged by 411% from 2022 to 2023.
- Significant Attacks: Notable incidents, including attacks on Change Healthcare and CDK Global, as well as the PanOS zero-day vulnerability, have been the leading drivers of claims in 2024.
- Vendor Breaches: Vendor-related breaches accounted for 35% of all claims since January 2023, with that number rising to 40% in 2024, driven by vulnerabilities in third-party vendors such as Ivanti software.
- BlackCat Group: The BlackCat hacking group, responsible for the Change Healthcare breach, has continued its costly attacks into 2024, representing 18% of covered ransomware losses in 2023.
- Industry Impact: The manufacturing and construction sectors experienced the largest increases in claims in 2024, with manufacturing rising from 15.2% of claims in 2023 to 41.7% in 2024, and construction from 6.1% to 25.0% over the same period.
The report also underscores the risks associated with the 36% increase in global M&A deal volume in the first quarter of 2024. While these deals are often seen as positive economic indicators, they introduce numerous potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Likewise, the reliance on single technology suppliers for critical services has demonstrated catastrophic consequences when breaches occur, resulting in ransom payments, business interruptions, and significant revenue losses.
“Major attacks like the ones on Change Healthcare, CDK Global, and AT&T have been wreaking havoc and making headlines, but they also remind us that we’re facing a new status quo. Increased vendor interdependence and M&A activity have created an unprecedented opportunity for hackers, with far more points of failure and potential for human error,” said Vishaal “V8” Hariprasad, co-founder and CEO of Resilience. “Now more than ever, we need to rethink how the C-suite approaches cyber risk. Businesses are interconnected like never before, and their resilience now depends on that of their partners and others in the industry.”
Resilience’s unique combination of cyber insurance offerings, risk quantification, and cybersecurity expertise helps clients get ahead of emerging threats—and bounce back faster from cyber incidents that do occur. Over 90% of Resilience clients that directly experienced a ransomware attack in 2023-2024 avoided paying an extortion fee. In fact, even as incidents tied to Lockbit or Cl0p ransomware grew over the past year, Resilience clients were able to effectively mitigate and manage these destructive threats, and avoided paying any extortion fees tied to these hacking groups.
“While cybersecurity has historically been considered as a line item in a company’s budget, it’s clear that this is insufficient,” said Tom Egglestone, global head of claims at Resilience. “Business leaders must adopt a risk-centric approach—one in which security strategies are grounded in the financial translation of cyber threats. At Resilience, this approach has paid dividends. In 2023 and 2024, our clients minimized material losses, rarely paid extortions, and avoided business disruption—not only withstanding the effects of attacks, but coming out stronger on the other side.”
Read the full report here.
Source: Resilience
