Ransomware in India: 5th most attacked country; Time to wake up!

We have covered Ransomware oftentimes in the past – how to prevent it, what to do if attacked, and how information technology is affecting computer security globally. Today nosotros accept a await at the incidence of Ransomware in India. How prevalent it is and is the Indian authorities and corporate Republic of india ready to face this new cyber threat.

Ransomware has come to Republic of india in force, but India is all the same to wake fully up to the trouble. It meliorate do then soon, as cybercriminals are now targeting the Indian Government servers, small businesses, the Indian banking sector – and even individuals.

To-date malware has not really majorly created havoc in our lives. We have our antivirus software and we are reasonably protected. But this one is a different genre. Ransomware volition silently get into your reckoner, lock all your files and data and demand a bribe to unlock it and brand information technology usable. If this happens, yous could well have a disaster on your hands – unless of course, you have backed upwards your data safely.

Read: Cyber hygiene is generally poor in India; About hit by Ransomware!

Incidence of Ransomware in Republic of india

ransomware in india

Republic of india is 5th largest target for Ransomware in the world

The trouble of ransomware entered India several months back, and if reports are to exist believed, India is already the 5th-most attacked country in the world and the tertiary-well-nigh attacked in Asia. Not expecting to be hit so difficult, folks are slowly waking up from sleep to find out that ransomware is already spreading out fast – especially within the government and banking institutions.

"Ransomware attacks are loftier in India and it is one the top five countries that has most infections," says Vitaly Kamluk, Head of APAC Global Enquiry and Analysis Team, Kaspersky Lab.

The US-based Symantec Corporation says that India is now receiving ransomware attacks at a charge per unit of 65,000 per annum. This translates to approximately 170 ransomware attacks a twenty-four hour period.

FireEye, some other US-based security house observed that ransomware detections in India rocketed by a factor of 292 in Feb 2016 over November 2015.

About of the ransomware attacks in Bharat are crypto-ransomware. This is an attack where all the information of connected devices are encrypted so that the user cannot use them until they pay up money as directed by the cyber attackers.

In India, over 11,000 users were attacked by TeslaCrypt ransomware during the period of March-May 2016 and ranked 1st in the list of countries attacked by information technology in that period. TeslaCrypt has at present been shut down, and its principal decryptor fundamental released on the Cyberspace for all. During the same menses, around 600 users were attacked past Locky ransomware and ranked 4th in the listing of countries attacked by this ransomware during that time. Android ransomware named Lockdroid is also making its presence felt in the Android Bone smartphone segment. Samas likewise has hit India. WannaCrypt ransomware has impacted India also.

State-wise, Karnataka tops the list of ransomware infections, and the other percentages are as follows:

Karnataka – 36.58 %
Tamil Nadu – 16.72 %
Maharashtra – x.86 %
Delhi – 10.00 %
W Bengal -6.seventy %
Uttar Pradesh – 5.33 %
Telangana – four.54 %
Kerala – 3.87 %
Gujarat – 2.35 %
Haryana – one.96 %

The attacks that go unreported are anybody's guess!

Microsoft recently published a data mentioning how many machines (users) were affected by ransomware attacks beyond the world. It was found that the United States was on the acme of ransomware attacks; followed past Italia and Canada. In this list, India stood at number xvi.

According to statistics released by Symantec, the principal targets other than the India regime servers are entities based on Internet of Things and the ones using Android smartphones. Along with Lockdroid, FLocker, mobile lock-screen ransomware is also threatening Android-powered Smart TVs, says Tendency Micro. Wearables could well be the side by side category to be targetted.

The Cyberspace population in India as of June 2016 end, is around 462 million people. With such a large user base of operations that does not fifty-fifty take Online Privacy, let alone Ransomware seriously, it is all gold for the cyber-criminal.

Ransomware attack targets in India – Regime, Banks, and More than

Three Bank & a Pharma company were hitting past Lechiffre ransomware

In January 2016, several IT admins received an email. Iv of them – three working in different banks and one working in a pharmaceutical company took the bait and infected their systems and encrypted their files using Lechiffre ransomware. One time this happened, the iv received an email, demanding that they hand over 1 BitCoin (INR xxx,000 or USD 400 approximately) for each PC, if they wanted to unlock their company data.

2 Business houses reported having paid $ 5 meg

In May 2016, 2 large Indian houses were reported to accept paid around $5 1000000, after they found that their systems were compromised. The Ransomware said to be operating from the Eye E, threatened to leak information to the Indian government if the ransom wasn't delivered. Both paid up. This was reported in the Indian press.

Maharashtra Authorities hitting – Lost data on 150+ computers

The Revenue Department of the Govt. of Maharashtra – ane of the biggest states in India – was attacked in May 2016. The attack crippled more than 150 computers, and they have non yet been recovered every bit of the time of writing this post. The report stated that the Locky ransomware struck the principal server, propagated to other computers on the network, and was asking payments in virtual online currencies like Bitcoins.

Read: Indian Forest Department falls victim to Ransomware assault.

Banks and Small Businesses

Several other businesses are withal running Windows XP, even after the finish of support. These firms are at high risk of being hacked and injected with ransomware. Microsoft has urged that companies should migrate to Windows 10, but the call goes unheard. Perhaps they are averse to spending money to upgrade their operating organization, their software besides as their hardware to newer versions.

I accept noticed that some Bank ATMs are still using Windows XP. They have not even so started upgrading despite the RBI urging them to upgrade at to the lowest degree to Windows seven. They say the toll would be as well high, and the consumers won't pay for transactions. If reports are to exist believed, banks are working on replacing cards with Chip and Pin. That won't help them in preventing a simple hacking attack, let alone dealing with ransomware.

Now let the states have a wait at the kind of impairment Ransomware could inflict of government schemes.

Damage to Government's Ambitious Schemes – Destroying Digital India

With the government change in May 2014, 2 new schemes were announced:

Due east-governance
Smart Cities

Y'all already know that e-governance ways servers and mirrors running round the clock. Online complaints, online registrations, and even online direct debits for people. Cyber-criminals won't remember twice before encrypting the data of such people. As the government wants them to do good, if their IDs and bank details etc. are destroyed, information technology could exist a huge mess – completely derailing the arrangement.

Smart Cities concepts are based completely on the Cyberspace of Things. All things in a smart urban center are continued to each other and as well to a central bespeak that connects them to other smart cities. The new government is working hard on the smart cities concept. Many times, I accept seen computers yet running the outdated Windows XP in government offices! In such cases, it would be easy for a cybercriminal to take control of an entire city.

If nosotros look at the whole picture, the threat of ransomware in India is loftier, partly because of the ostrich mentality and partly because institutions don't want to invest more in cybersecurity. Folks are all the same using outdated operating systems and are not very alert when it comes to clicking on web links and do not even take the basic precautions while opening email attachments.

India is on the road to economical progress and as a outcome, the ferocity & frequency of ransomware attacks are expected to increase exponentially. I gauge it will take a couple of harsh attacks before organizations & the government realize the gravity of the situation and motion towards safeguarding their digital assets.

The best way to protect yourself and prevent Ransomware attacks is to regularly support your data to a dissimilar location, use a proficient anti-ransomware software, a fully updated modern operating system, ensure that all your installed software, especially your security software & browser are updated to the latest version, and practice caution while clicking on whatever spider web link or opening email attachments.

Nonetheless, if you exercise happen to have the misfortune of being infected with ransomware, and so this post will tell you what to do subsequently a Ransomware assail.

UPDATES:

one] Ransomware comes too close for comfort! A screenshot of my friend's (Pune, India) computer whose Windows 10 system was hijacked by the Cerber ransomware! He has no backups – so he has to either kiss bye to all his business data or pay upwards!

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