U.S. insights company shows ransomware hackers drew in $1bn across 2023

Ransomware hackers extorted $1bn across 2023, according to data insights company and blockchain platform.

The company published a report showing the extent of malicious hacking and developing trends affecting entities across the last year.

Chainanalysis provides data, software, services, and research to government agencies and companies across seventy countries.

”Our data powers investigation, compliance, and market intelligence software that has been used to solve some of the world’s most high-profile criminal cases and grow consumer access to cryptocurrency safely,” says the company site.

The report details a staggering increase of $433 million in ransom taken from victims compared to 2022, growing to the highest-ever rate of $1bn in 2023.

Report shows biggest ransomware attack of 2023

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) in June of last year highlighting the MOVEit vulnerability, carried out by the CL0P Ransomware Gang.

This would be one of the biggest reported ransomware attacks recorded and was the spike point of 2023’s issue with ‘Zero-Day’ exploits.

What is a Zero-Day?

The report details this as a ‘Zero-Day’ vulnerability that compromised multiple institutions simultaneously. The attack is given this name as it gives the developers zero days to respond to it as it exploits an existing crack in the defenses they were unaware of.

The MOVEit hack was like finding all the keys to multiple company lockboxes in one big digital bank vault.

The hack hit several established institutions and exploited a vulnerability in the file transfer system. The software owner would announce that the service had been compromised with sensitive data, including personal details, and in some cases, banking information was in the hands of hackers.

Sony, the BBC, and Flagstar Bank were a few of those affected. The Maine Attorney General documented that 837,390 users had their data violated, with the report stating, “Information Acquired — Name or other personal identifiers in combination with Social Security Number.”

The Japanese tech giant, Sony, would also send letters to those affected stating that the company wanted to “provide you with information about a cybersecurity event related to one of our IT vendors, Progress Software, that involved some of your personal information.”

“This event was limited to Progress Software’s MOVEit Transfer platform and did not impact any of our other systems.”

This would extort massive amounts of data and considerably damage Progress Software’s reputation.

U.S. Federal forces and companies across the globe will be hoping that the number of attacks and the amount extorted will fall across 2024.

Brian-Damien Morgan

Freelance Journalist

Brian-Damien Morganis an award-winning journalist and features writer. He was lucky enough to work in the print sector for many UK newspapers before embarking on a successful career as a digital broadcaster and specialist.

His work has spanned the public and private media sectors of the United Kingdom for almost two decades.

Since 2007, Brian has continued to add to a long list of publications and institutions, most notably as Editor of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, winning multiple awards for his writing and digital broadcasting efforts.

Brian would then go on to be integral to the Legacy 2014, Media and Sport Directorate of the Scottish Government. Working with ministers to enact change through sport with institutions like the Homeless World Cup.

He would then lend his skills to multiple private sector institutions. Brian would win national acclaim helping his country deliver judicial education and communications during the pandemic-era. Earning a writ of personal distinction from the Lord President of Scotland for his efforts as the Head of Communications and Digital for the Judicial Office for Scotland.

Brian has returned back to the thing he loves most, writing and commenting on developments across technology, gaming and legal topics, as well as any-and-all things sport related.