Sophos released the Sophos 2022 Threat Report, which highlights how ransomware’s black hole is attracting other cyberthreats to form one vast, linked ransomware delivery system– with serious ramifications for IT security.

Over past year, we have seen cybercriminals get smarter and quicker at retooling their tactics to follow new badactor schemes – from ransomware to nation-states – and we don’t anticipate that changing in 2022.

In most sophisticated ecosystems, multiple people and functions work together. It works the same way now in cybercrime. In the cybercrime supply chain, the suppliers create and produce things like malware and zero-code exploits, then they license, sell, and share their technology with distributors and affiliates, who then sell their solutions to clients who target those solutions at victims.

During our operations, we have observed four emerging ransomware groups that are currently affecting organizations and show signs of having the potential to become more prevalent in the future: AvosLocker , Hive, HelloKitty, LockBit 2.0.

66 percent of organizations surveyed reported significant loss of revenue after a ransomware attack, 53 percent of organizations indicated that their brand and reputation were damaged as a result of a successful attack, and 32 percent reported losing C-level talent as a direct result of ransomware attacks. 26 percent of organizations reported ransomware attacks forced their businesses to close temporarily.