Cerber Ransomware Makes Come-Back from when it was one of the first bits of malicious code to utilize “ransomware as a service in 2017,” it quickly became the most widely used ransomware strain on the planet.
Cerber was once responsible for 90 percent of all ransomware attacks made against Windows-based systems.
By 2018 the world had moved on, and there was a wide range of other, shiny new things that drew hackers’ attention, and the Cerber Ransomware star began to fade. It was effectively dead by the beginning of 2019, with no reported instances of its use anywhere.
2020 proved that everything old is eventually new again, however. Cerber Ransomware reared its fearsome head again and began finding an audience among the hackers of the world.
Cerber malware’s developers had used made a come-back well and updated their code to bring it up to par with more modern ransomware strains. Combine that with the fact that the code is still using “as a service,” makes it very easy to find a willing audience and its previous reputation certainly helps.
Although Cerber didn’t boast 90 percent of all Windows-based ransomware attacks in 2020, it did manage to capture 58 percent of them. This is impressive, since the year before, it was essentially a non-entity.
While no one can say with any certainty what 2021 will hold, if the past is any guide, Cerber will probably shine brightly for a while, then vanish, only to reappear again in another year or two. In the meanwhile, stay on your guard. It’s not a threat to take lightly.
