Ransomware attacks surged last year and hackers are estimated to steal more than $1.1 billion in total from data extortions.
Crypto payment tracker Chainalysis noted record-high ransomware payments in 2023, the first time hackers breached the $1 billion mark in all cybercrime history.
Many hackers demand payments to be made via cryptocurrency to avoid being tracked.
According to the site, the exponential spike in the money stolen was caused by "big game hunting" that became a trend for many hackers last year.
This means wealthier institutions and corporations are more exposed to attacks for bigger ransom payments.
Most notable was the ransomware attack on the MGM resorts where the cybercriminal groups "Scattered Spider" and "ALPHV-BlackCat" cost the casino $100 million from damages.
With more exploits being discovered and cyberattacks becoming more sophisticated, analysts expect more entities will be affected by the hacking campaigns.
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Hackers Target Healthcare Networks, Gaming Industry
The increase in cyberattacks last year has been largely targeted at healthcare and game developer networks at varying degrees of success.
Hospitals have been a common target for hackers due to the relevance of the information being held hostage, many of which impact the lives of patients.
Due to the possible impact of the cyberattacks, hospitals reportedly paid $100 million in total to hackers to recover their electronic data last year.
Many of these hackers were suspected to be connected to the Russian government and have worked as state-backed intelligence scouts, according to the US Department of Justice via CNN.
The game industry has been more strict in paying hackers the demanded ransom.
This has led to many game leaks circulating online, one of such was the early builds from Insomniac's Wolverine game that was originally set to release sometime in 2025.
Government Efforts Against Ransomware Hackers
This is not to say that the government has not done anything to prevent more hackers in stealing critical data from companies and agencies.
Data reports from Chainalysis show a dramatic decrease in collected ransomware money in 2022.
This is in part to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's effort to crack down on one of the prolific hackers in the 21st century, Hive.
The infiltration in the cybercriminal reportedly put a strain on the cybercrimes that year where hackers were only able to steal at least $567 million.
For now, the FBI has been working with cybersecurity experts to better secure networks from more sophisticated or foreign state-backed attacks this year.
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