Data Breach Trends — 2016: The Year Of Ransomware

Over the past year, the BakerHostetler Incident Response team has closely monitored data breach trends, and we are confident in concluding that 2016 was the year of ransomware. Nothing has had a greater impact or has been as widespread in 2016 than ransomware.

From a hospital in California to a police department in Massachusetts, ransomware has been a plague for organizations large and small. And yet, despite being around for years, 2016 was the year ransomware became an epidemic. Security firm Kaspersky Labs estimates that in the third quarter of 2016, a ransomware infection was occurring every 30 seconds, and a November 2016 study by SentinelOne found that half of all companies surveyed reported a ransomware attack in the past 12 months. With the FBI announcing that ransomware was on track to be a billion-dollar criminal enterprise, it's no secret that money has been fueling this outbreak.