A new research report suggests that ransomware attacks are not only becoming more frequent, but hackers are also striking faster than ever before. Researchers indicate that bad actors are rolling out attacks as quickly as security professionals can resolve them.
Ransomware-as-a-service offerings are a common attack method used by cybercriminals, in which they offer various malicious tools and services to buyers as a subscription. According to the latest in-depth analysis by the Barracuda Managed XDR team, there were four times as many Ransomware attacks in 2024 as in the year prior.
The team observed 11 trillion IT events in 2024 to test for potential risks and flagged 1 million in that set as having a potential risk. Out of those the team identified 16,812 events as “high-severity threats that required immediate defensive action.”
The research center noted that ransomware attacks are especially advancing, in comparison to other types of cyberattacks, likely because ransomware-as-a-service offerings are becoming more readily available.
“This rise is likely driven by the prevalence of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) offerings. The developers behind RaaS platforms often have the time, resources, and skills to invest heavily in advanced and evasive toolsets and templates,” Barracuda Managed XDR team said in its report announcement.
Its report statistics indicate that it took bad actors attempting to deploy ransomware spent between 74 minutes and 2 hours on various attacks before being detected.
“The RaaS operational model also extends the pool of attackers deploying ransomware, bringing it within reach of anyone willing to lease and leverage the kits,” the team added.
Overall, the security team indicates that cybercriminals are using ever faster and more intricate strategies, even as security professionals improve their own defense tools. Other stats note that while bad actors can install malware in just over one minute, Barracuda Managed XDR can register 350,000 IT events per second to begin tracking for serious threats.
The security team keeps in mind organizations can still implement their in-house safety measures, with multifactor authentication, access controls, patch management, data protection, and cybersecurity awareness training for employees.