An absurdly small number of companies affected by ransomware reported the incidents to the federal government last year, newly released FBI data shows. While more than a third of all ransomware infections occurred in the U.S. last year, according to U.S. cybersecurity firm Symantec, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) only “received 2,673 complaints identified as ransomware” in 2016 amounting to “losses of over $2.4 million,” according to a new report. Current private sector estimates for total ransomware losses in 2016 alone exceeded $100 million, said Vincent Weafer, vice president of McAfee Labs, and that’s “likely on the conservative side.” Verizon also found that ransomware infections were up 50 percent from 2015 to 2016. And McAfee saw more than 9 million cases of ransomware during the same time period. “One of the biggest problems with prosecuting ransomware is the recalcitrance of organizations and people in reporting they were hacked,” said John Bambenek, […]
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