It's becoming more important than ever to ensure employees aren't clicking on suspicious emails, as the threat and presence of ransomware continues to grow. At the end of March, 93 percent of phishing emails contained encryption ransomware, reports CSO, citing a report by security company PhishMe. The growth in ransomware has been exponential. In December, 56 percent of phishing emails contained encryption ransomware, while less than 10 percent of phishing emails contained encryption ransowmare for every other month in 2015, according to the report.
Additionally, the number of phishing emails is steadily rising. There were more than 6.3 million phishing emails sent this year through the end of March, up 789 percent from the last quarter of 2015, according to the report.
Brendan Griffin, threat intelligence manager at PhishMe, told CSO the rise in ransomware is likely due to its ease of use — just sending an email and letting the malware encrypt the computer on its own — and fast return on investment for the hackers.
"If you look at the price point of paying the ransom, it is rarely more than 1 or 2 bitcoin. That's $400 to $800, maybe $1,000 depending on the exchange rate," he said in the report. "That's a relatively low price point for a small to medium business."
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