Cybercriminals made a lot of noise in 2017 with ransomware attacks like WannaCry and NotPetya, using an in-your-face approach to cyberattacks that netted them millions of dollars from victims. But new research from IBM X-Force, the threat intelligence, research and incident response arm of IBM Security, revealed that 2018 saw a rapid decline in ransomware attacks as cybercrime gangs shifted tactics to remain under the radar.
Ransomware attacks declined by 45 percent between Q1 2018 and Q4 2018, according to the research. That doesn’t mean cybercrime is on the decline, however. Instead, cybercriminals employed cryptojacking, the stealthy theft of computing power to generate cryptocurrency, at a much higher rate. Cryptojacking surged by 450 percent over the course of 2018, according to the newly released “IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2019.”
