This information is contained in the biannual report by S21sec, which claims to be “one of the leading providers of cybersecurity services in Europe”.

The 'Threat Landscape Report', which gives an overview of the relevant threats in the second half of last year, shows that in recent years, ransomware has become "one of the types of cyberattacks with the greatest growth and impact, where those responsible are mainly financially motivated", says S21sec.

“Ransomware, after all, is a business, having over the last few months evolved into a ransomware-as-a-service model, where there is a division of expertise from the cybercriminals involved in the attack and of the profits adjacent to its success, with the operators keeping a percentage of the money earned from the attacks carried out by the branches, while they guarantee the infrastructure to support the business and commit to the development and improvement of the techniques applied” , explains Hugo Nunes, responsible for the Intelligence team at S21sec.

The technology tracked a total of 1,694 ransomware victims in all countries in the study – 101 – in the last six months and concludes that, “looking at the number of cases for each analysed territory, the United States leads the ranking of the most affected” by this type of cyberattack in the last half of 2021, with a total of 757 attacks.

“The United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and France appear soon after, while neighbouring Spain, with 32 registered ransomware attacks, is in eighth place”, with “Portugal appearing in 31st place” in the total of countries covered by the study.

“Data encryption, exfiltration of sensitive information and consequent DDoS attacks [attack that sends multiple requests to the invaded web resource with the aim of exceeding the sites ability to handle several requests, preventing its correct functioning are becoming more and more the three pressure factors on the victims of these attacks, with the aim of these cybercriminals obtaining financial gains”, says Hugo Nunes.

In Portugal, the most recent examples were the cyberattacks on the Impresa and Vodafone group, and more recently, on the Germano de Sousa group, which “was the target of a successful ransomware attack, having made part of its infrastructure unusable”, concludes S21sec.