Security News > 2021 > January > Extortion demands grow as cybercriminals target new online industries

Primarily, the report highlights a rise in ransom-related DDoS attacks, by which extortion demands are issued against organizations.

While RDDoS is not a new phenomenon for many online industries, attackers have recently set their sights on organizations across a wider variety of sectors including financial services, government and telecommunications.

2020 saw bad actors posing as prolific threat groups such as Fancy Bear in ransom notes - capitalizing on fear of high-profile nation-state attacks - and threatening DDoS attacks unless the ransom was paid within a specific time frame.

While 2020 did not see any dramatically new attack vectors emerge, there was certainly a greater use of existing ones like web applications, which were the top targeted hacking vector in 2020.

In 2020, there was also an increase in attacks on the Domain Name System itself - or what look like attacks, as bad actors abuse the system.

The total number of DDoS attacks Neustar mitigated on behalf of its customers in 2020 increased by more than two and a half times over 2019.

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