Coveware issued its Q1 2021 Ransomware Report on April 26, 2021, which concludes that “[D]ata exfiltration extortion continues to be prevalent and we have reached an inflection point where the vast majority of ransomware attacks now include the theft of corporate data.”

The Report states that the average ransom payment increased 43 percent from $154,108 in Q4 2020 to $220,000 in Q1 2021, and the median payment in Q1 2021 increased from $49,450 to $78,398, a 58 percent increase. According to Coveware, the activity by CloP in Q1 2021 was “extremely active.”

Seventy-seven percent of all threats included the threat to leak exfiltrated data, which was an increase of 10 percent from Q4 2020. Sodinokibi continued to dominate the market share as a ransom type at 14.2 percent, followed by Conti V2, Lockbit, CloP, Egregor, Avaddon, Ryuk, Darkside, Suncrypt, Netwalker, and Phobos. Of these, Egregor has sunset its operations, and Netwalker was dismantled by law enforcement.

The top vectors for attacks included remote desktop protocol compromise, “phishing emails that install credential stealing malware,” software vulnerability, and vulnerabilities in VPN appliances.

Photo of Linn Foster Freedman Linn Foster Freedman

Linn Freedman practices in data privacy and security law, cybersecurity, and complex litigation. She is a member of the Business Litigation Group and the Financial Services Cyber-Compliance Team, and chair’s the firm’s Data Privacy and Security Team. Linn focuses her practice on…

Linn Freedman practices in data privacy and security law, cybersecurity, and complex litigation. She is a member of the Business Litigation Group and the Financial Services Cyber-Compliance Team, and chair’s the firm’s Data Privacy and Security Team. Linn focuses her practice on compliance with all state and federal privacy and security laws and regulations. She counsels a range of public and private clients from industries such as construction, education, health care, insurance, manufacturing, real estate, utilities and critical infrastructure, marine and charitable organizations, on state and federal data privacy and security investigations, as well as emergency data breach response and mitigation. Linn is an Adjunct Professor of the Practice of Cybersecurity at Brown University and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Roger Williams University School of Law.  Prior to joining the firm, Linn served as assistant attorney general and deputy chief of the Civil Division of the Attorney General’s Office for the State of Rhode Island. She earned her J.D. from Loyola University School of Law and her B.A., with honors, in American Studies from Newcomb College of Tulane University. She is admitted to practice law in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Read her full rc.com bio here.