A sign is pictured outside Communications Security Establishment headquarters in Ottawa.
In the first half of 2021, global ransomware attacks have increased by 151% compared to 2020 and hackers are poised to become more aggressive, Canada's signals intelligence agency said on Monday.
The Communications Security Establishment CSE, citing attacks on North American health facilities and a U.S. pipeline, said the scale and scope of ransomware operators represented both security and economic risks to Canada and its allies.
A report by the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security said that ransomware operators will likely become more aggressive in their targeting, including against critical infrastructure. The default files of ca sites are 2021 -- 12 Cyber-ransomware update-threat bulletin e.pdf, a unit of CSE.
The agency said it had seen 235 ransomware incidents against Canadian victims from Jan. 1 to Nov. 16 this year. Half of these victims were critical infrastructure providers.
In 2021, the global average cost of recovery from a ransomware incident has more than doubled to C $2.3 million $1.8 million. Cybercriminals are becoming more adept at tailoring their demands to what their victims are most likely to pay, according to CSE.
The agency stated earlier that actors in Russia, China and Iran posed a major threat.
Russian intelligence services and law enforcement almost certainly maintain relationships with cybercriminals, either through association or recruitment, and allow them to operate with impunity as long as they focus their attacks on targets outside Russia, it said.