Recently, something big has happened in the world of data security.
If this world is a huge "hurricane", then the "strong group" here - Lockbit has recently ushered in the latest plot: being jointly encircled and suppressed by law enforcement agencies of many countries.
According to **, on February 20, law enforcement agencies in the United States, France, the United Kingdom and other countries jointly carried out "Operation Cronos" (Operation Cronos) to launch a large-scale crackdown on the number one ransomware organization Lockbit. In a statement, Europol said: "The months-long operation ultimately succeeded in dismantling the main platforms and other critical infrastructure on which Lockbit relied for its criminal activities. ”
Lockbit Ransomware Seizure Banner.
In 2019, Lockbit was born, shouting the slogan "Make ransomware great again", with highly targeted, destructive, and stealthy encryption methods, it took only four years to firmly rank first in the global ransomware list, with a market share of nearly 25%, far exceeding the second place 85%。
Throughout the history of Lockbit, it can be found that its attack targets cover many important fields such as energy, aerospace, information technology, transportation, etc., and the scope has affected North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and other regions.
In recent years, under the global wave of digital transformation, all walks of life have begun to actively combat ransomware. However, "the bigger the wind and waves, the more expensive the fish", in line with Gao Qiqiang's thinking, Lockbit chose to improve its technology and go straight to the wind, and since 2022, the number of ransomware attacks launched by it has maintained a significant growth trend in an almost rampant posture. Last year, the overseas branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China was blackmailed and encrypted, which is the "masterpiece" of Lockbit.
ICBC was attacked by a Lockbit ransomware attack.
The joint launch of Operation Kronos by law enforcement agencies from many countries is undoubtedly a heavy blow to Lockbit. According to reports, law enforcement agencies have taken control of Lockbit's management platform and obtained information about the consortium organizations, including the source**, in addition, 34 Lockbit servers in different regions have been seized. This means that for a short period of time, LockBit will not be able to launch a large ransom attack.
Lockbit leak site after seizure.
But does that mean that the data will be safe in the future? The answer, of course, is no.
Ransomware threats aren't just Lockbit. According to the 2023 Ransomware Trends Report, 85% of companies have experienced at least one ransomware attack, and about 17% have experienced four to five, or even more than six attacks in the past 12 months.
Even Lockbit stated after being rounded up that it had immediately launched an incident investigation and emergency response with cybersecurity experts after discovering the data breach. It seems that they are not discouraged by the joint strike of many countries, but are ready to make up for the shortcomings and "fight" again.
Many people also asked, can you only pay a ransom to keep your data if you encounter a ransomware virus? The answer is also no.
If you want to survive the onslaught of ransomware, the best way to do so is to back up your data in advance and prevent it from happening.
For Yunqi users, after deploying the Yunqi disaster recovery backup system, the original business data will be automatically uploaded to the system platform, which can ensure the consistency of backup data and the security of backup data storage. When a user is attacked by a ransomware virus, the user can select the safe backup point data that has been backed up in the Yunqi disaster recovery backup system, and restore it to the normal business platform to safely resume business operation.
In this way, if you encounter a ransomware virus, you can minimize the loss and impact in the first place, and avoid the embarrassing situation of ruining money and suffering disasters.