*Researchers say retail outlets are particularly vulnerable to a small but growing new trend of 鈥榚xtortion-only鈥� attacks as several retailers started trading online, following the outbreak of COVID-19

Gbenga Kayode | 绿帽献妻

As the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic still rages in several economies across 聽the world with its highly transmissible Delta variant, retail organisations are said to have become a new prime target for ransomware since several retailers started trading online.

It was gathered the retail outlets are particularly vulnerable to a small but growing new trend: extortion-only attacks.

In this scenario, the ransomware operators do not encrypt files but threaten to leak stolen information online if a ransom demand is not paid, a survey by the cybersecurity company Sophos found.

Cybercriminal

The survey polled 5,400 Information Technology (IT) decision-makers, including 435 retail IT managers, in 30 countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Central Asia, Middle East and Africa, CyberNews report said.

Survey findings noted both retail and education faced the highest level of ransomware attacks during 2020, with 44 percent of organisations hit (compared to 37 percent across all industry sectors).

Chester Wisniewski, a Principal Research Scientist at Sophos, in a press release was quoted to have said: 鈥淭he retail sector has always been an attractive target for cyberattacks, with its complex, distributed IT environments, including a multitude of connected point-of-sale (PoS) devices, a relatively transient and non-technical workforce, and access to a wide range of personal and financial customer data.鈥�

鈥淭he impact of the pandemic introduced additional security challenges that cybercriminals were quick to exploit.鈥�

The total bill for rectifying a ransomware attack in the retail sector, considering downtime, people time, device cost, network cost, lost opportunity, ransom paid, and more, was $1.97million on average, in comparison to a cross-sector average of $1.85million.

Wisniewski also stated: 鈥淭he comparatively high percentage of targets hit with data-theft-based extortion attacks is not entirely surprising.

鈥淪ervice industries, such as retail hold information that is often subject to strict data protection laws, and attackers are only too willing to exploit a victim鈥檚 fear of fallout from a data breach in terms of fines and damage to brand reputation, sales, and customer trust.鈥�

Over half (54 percent) of the retail organisations hit by ransomware, according to the survey, said the attackers had successfully encrypted their data.

Likewise, a third (32 percent) of those whose data was encrypted paid the ransom, report noted.

The average ransom payment was $147,811 (lower than the global average of $170,404.) However, those who paid recovered on average only two-thirds (67%) of their data, leaving a third inaccessible, and just 9 percent got all their encrypted data back.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not all bad news for retail IT managers, however. While enabling, managing, and securing IT during the pandemic increased the overall IT workload for three-quarters of retailers 鈥� the sector was also the most likely (at 77 percent) to see a positive return in terms of enhanced cybersecurity skills and knowledge,鈥� Wisniewski said.

In order to secure retail IT networks against ransomware and other cyberattacks, therefore, experts urge IT teams to focus resources on three critical areas.

Such areas, accoding to report, include building more robust defences against cyberthreats, introducing security skills training for users, including part-time and temporary staff, where possible, and investing in more resilient infrastructure.