Insider threat recruitment on the rise

Sixty-five percent of executives and employees in large IT firms in North America reported being recruited by ransomware threat actors to help facilitate attacks between December 7, 2021 and January 4, 2022, which was 17 percentage points higher than in November, BleepingComputer reports. Most attackers contacted employees through email or social media although phone calls were found to be the means of communication in 27% of approach efforts, according to a Hitachi ID survey. The poll also showed that most were given a deal of lower than $500,000 in cash for their cooperation in the ransomware attack. Researchers also discovered that insider threats are commonly ignored and not considered in companies' cybersecurity plans. While 53% of IT executives reported being equally worried about internal and external threats, 36% were more concerned about external threats and 3% were unbothered by either threat. Most organizations were also discovered not to adopt security measures aimed at mitigating insider threats.