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Barracuda researchers analysed 175 publicly reported successful ransomware attacks across the world between August 2022 and July 2023 , and in the primary categories Barracuda has been tracking , municipalities , healthcare and education , the number of reported attacks have all doubled since last year and more than quadrupled since 2021 . Researchers also saw a spike in the number of attacks on infrastructure-related industries . While successful ransomware attacks targeting infrastructure-related industries are lower in volume compared to the top three sectors , these industries also experienced more than twice the number of attacks compared to last year .

The analysis revealed similar patterns of escalation in other industries , particularly ransomware attacks on software businesses .

In the past 12 months , Barracuda ’ s SOC-as-a-Service team observed the following types of incidents : business email compromise , ransomware , malware infection , insider threat , identity theft , and data leakage . Ransomware accounted for 27.3 % of incidents , second only to BEC , 36.4 %.

This year also , Barracuda researchers also took a closer look the impact of generative AI tactics on ransomware attacks , looking at ways cybercriminals can use these capabilities to strike faster and with better accuracy .

The number of successful ransomware attacks continues to climb and shows no signs of slowing down . Recent advances in generative AI will only help ransomware gangs increase the rate of attack with more effective cyber weapons . That is why it is essential for organisations to have tools in place to detect and prevent attacks , but also to be resilient and prepared to recover from an attack .

Another important development in the past year is the rise of generative AI , which you can bet attackers are using to create well-crafted phishing emails . Using generative

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