Crypto Ransomware Tallied at Least $602M But Actual Figures Could Be Higher: Chainalysis

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Chainal­y­sis has iden­ti­fied more than $602 mil­lion worth of ran­somware pay­ments in 2021. But the firm is con­fi­dent that the fig­ure is still an “under­es­ti­mate” and that the true total for the year is like­ly to be much higher.

2021 Ransomeware Payouts

A report from the blockchain ana­lyt­ics firm Chainal­y­sis showed that at least $602 mil­lion worth of ran­som pay­outs were iden­ti­fied in 2021. But the fig­ures could be high­er con­sid­er­ing the fact that ran­somware rev­enue in the first half of 2021 exceed­ed that of the first half of 2020. This essen­tial­ly sug­gest­ed that 2021 will sub­se­quent­ly unfold into an even big­ger year for ransomware.

Oper­a­tors of such attacks typ­i­cal­ly lock the data of an orga­ni­za­tion or plat­form with encryp­tion and request a ran­som demand. Over the past few years, they have not only inten­si­fied in terms of num­ber but also severity.

The pay­ment size of ran­somware pay­ment also con­tin­ued to grow in 2021. The report stat­ed that the aver­age demand pay­ment was more than $118,000 in 2021 com­pared to $88,000 in 2020 and $25,000 in 2019.

Ransomware Strains

Con­ti tops the list of ran­somware strains in 2021, extort­ing $180 mil­lion from vic­tims. Lever­ag­ing a ran­somware-as-a-ser­vice (RaaS) mod­el, the oper­a­tors enabled affil­i­ates to strike with the help of their ran­somware pro­gram in exchange for a fee. While many strains remain active for a short time before going dor­mant, Con­ti was the one that stayed oper­a­tional through­out last year.

Dark­side fol­lowed suit, pri­mar­i­ly for its role in the infa­mous attack on the oil pipeline Colo­nial Pipeline. The attack that made head­lines last year serves as an impor­tant reminder of the large-scale dam­age ran­somware attacks can trigger.

The US Depart­ment of Jus­tice (DOJ) suc­cess­ful­ly track­ing and seiz­ing $2.3 mil­lion of the ran­som that the Amer­i­can oil pipeline sys­tem paid to Dark­Side, also evi­denced the need to report these attacks to the law enforce­ment agen­cies despite pay­ing the request­ed fee.

What was even more inter­est­ing is there were more active indi­vid­ual ran­somware strains in 2021 than any oth­er year. Chainl­y­sis revealed that around 140 ran­somware attacks raked in pay­ments from vic­tims at any point in 2021, up from 119 in 2020 and 79 in 2019.

“Those num­bers are emblem­at­ic of the intense growth of ran­somware we’ve seen over the last two years. Most ran­somware strains come and go in waves, stay­ing active for a short amount of time before becom­ing dormant.”

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