2023 Ransomware Insights Report – Fleming Shi, Barracuda Networks

This is texturing TV. Hey everyone, welcome back to techstrong TV. I'm really happy to have my friend Fleming.

She on with us now for those of you who may not know Fleming Shi the CTO Chief technology officer at Barracuda Networks. And Fleming's been with Barracuda. Well, you didn't join yesterday.

I'll tell you that he'll tell you all about it. But hey Fleming, it's great to have you back contact strong TV. I hope you've been well.

Thank you for having me. It's great to be out here talking to you about the ransomware report. And yeah, it's great to be back on with you.

So Fleming, you're a bit of an anomaly in this eight day and age. Why don't you share with our audience a little bit about kind of your story and you're involvement with barracuda? Sure thing.

Yeah, so I joined the Barracuda in 2004 when the company was primarily focused on NT spam Solutions and I joined that time with the funding teams to to build the second product the web security product obviously very could have evolved and we're at the spot where you know, we're basically building a lot of SAS kind of enabled Security Solutions today. We still have different modalities and deployment modes to allow customers to utilize our solution wherever they need it and it is just being awesome almost 19 years with with the company. Yes is a little bit and anomaly because you know in the taking industry people move around quite a bit.

I have been sticking around because just consistently there are new Innovations in the company new areas to focus to help our Commerce because customers are moving right from the days of having their own email server in their closet. Now, it's everything in Cloud same thing as their application infrastructure. They they workers are not.

You know, semi I would call a hybrid. So there's always new things to do. So I really haven't got bored and it's been great.

So it's it's been a wonderful Journey with Barracuda. We do cover, you know, Security Solutions all the way from email attack surface to network infrastructure application security which means protecting or websites your web applications that you build as well as your users. That's primarily utilizing maybe today a lot of SAS application today and that those users are running their laptops from home could be on the road could be also in office.

So the way we we provide our solution is end to end in protecting a company and also obviously most importantly some of the use cases like rent some more attacks Disaster Recovery will have a different very very different sets of tools to actually achieved whatever objective you need for your business for recovery and and and situation like ransomware. Yeah. Got it.

Excellent, man. Hey, just you know, this is a silly question. I'm sorry, but I introduced you as Barracuda Networks.

I thought I remember the company going to just Barracuda not Network. So a while ago is is it what what's right? I don't I want to make sure you get it right.

It's actually you're right the first time it's it's always very good in networks and Barracuda. It is important to realize we we like calling our supper barracudas because you know, we're very aggressive being attacking threats. And what's also interesting is that you know, Barracuda gets Associated to various different, you know things right like in a sense.

The music right? Very good. Oh, I remember even the dean of Summer parties with the team.

They will play that music from the heart all the time and but generally better couldn't network is that it's the right way to cost absolutely and the website. com. com actually simplify that's right away now, right?

Yeah, you look at the main point. Yeah, exactly. We're still both are gonna get you the right place but very good at com.

Yeah, excellent. All right, we got all that out of the way. Let's jump in you guys recently came out with your 2023 ransomware insights report that you tell our audience a little bit about the report.

Why you doing it while you guys did it? What what's up some of the findings were yeah. Absolutely.

I think the important thing here about ransomware. It's being a wrong, right? So it's we wanted to look at through the lands of whether are we improving are we doing better as basically, you know in the industry, especially when you're thinking about potential victims, it's it's growing because the option of digital assets and just transformation from things that we used to do to where we are today.

It's expending very quickly, especially adoption of SAS applications and plow, right? So we see that growth meant We also realize that tax surface is getting bigger potentially for the bad guys. So for example, one of the key thing that we realized is it's not a like okay, I might get you know lucky I never get hit so actually majority of the people already got hit once at least right and we even have folks who are I think it's over 70% of the companies that we survey that actually was hit at least once now we even have folks.

There are basically I would just say two times three times. And and and if you think about it in this way it the only reason there's a repeat of of a situation like 28% I think was at least two times then there's like, you know more than two times like three or more you're looking at another 10% of the people with survey so in general, This problem doesn't go away and since like once you recover and it might come back to you. So it is really important to understand why that's the case partially probably due to preparing us.

The other thing is remember the attackers are gonna look for signals. Like hey, these guys are I think one of the signals we saw through the report is that if you have separate insurance more than likely they will talk to you first because they know you might get you might get coverage right? They can negotiate even though they may ask for certain amount but the mommy get reduced but the likelihood of pain is is higher so and so generally if you look at Overall preparedness of the industry whoever is touching digital assets probably everybody right now is at risk and the good news.

There's some good news. By the way. There's I think it's 27% versus 2019 when we did another round what we found out well back then was 44% of the people feel like I'm not ready for rent somewhere and now it's about like quite a bit better right 27% versus 44, which means people either get hit and got better and you know continue to maintain that security posture and and capabilities and and visibility to everything they do which to me.

It's a positive sign. Well, I also wanted to point out We did cover something related. You should read the report about different Industries or business organization types, right like public sector or less likely to pay now actually, which is a good thing which it means they are getting serious about finding out a way not to pay the rent Zone because if you think about public sector could be municipality could be places where lots of citizens personally information is residing.

So in that case those scenarios to me, it's a positive sign of course businesses are more likely to pay especially like Leisure and travel and and think the entertainment they seem to to pretty much follow up with the payment to rent some pretty quickly. I do understand that because they need that continuity in their business, but generally I believe There's some signs of you know, just being prepared better security posture against ransomware attacks. And we did also find out, you know, if you think about ransomware attacks.

It's getting to the point where the attacks are. Not not just one time. It is also about stealing your data finding ways to to basically extort you or what we call doxing as other basically form of actually trying to get you to pay multiple times, right?

So if you read through the report, you will see sort of the picture where we're saying, you know, it is important to be ready for and somewhere all the time. Yeah at this point. Yeah, absolutely.

Tony Fleming Shi you said this, I apologize but anything in the report that gives an indication of You know what percentage of companies out there actually have cyber insurance. Yeah, I think we do have that information there. I think I think most of the people are already, you know covered with cyber insurance, but the 70% I would say over.

I would say. A lot of them has insurance but you know, it's also important to think about insurance companies are getting smarter. I think last year.

We saw a note on Travelers, which is underwriter. They actually rescinded their insurance because there was Mr. Representation of of actually MFA so they investigated and and the indicator was supposed to have MFA but it was incorrectly marked down.

So it's not just a survey question anymore. Right? So insurance companies are coming in with actual assessment.

So so basically I would say, you know, even you have insurance you the chance of actually getting the payment, you know, depending on the size of course and and the the comprehensiveness of your coverage. It may not be necessarily. You know be the right.

You know, I would just say I mean not necessarily be able to cover everything because even let's say more than 60% as we talked about having insurance. I would say probably maybe 30 40 or maybe 50 in a Range will end up actually following up and payment it so so I think the more key here is getting insurance is important but not having the right posture not being constantly monitored having the observable observability to actually solve. for ransomware and I think that the insurance industry is going to move from survey-based questionnaires to or continuous monitoring and I think that part is the one thing I want to point out that Yeah, you know everyone should be should be ready for because otherwise you may not get the support from insurance company.

Well, you know what they say about insurance and this just isn't cyber Insurance. You don't know how good your insurance is till you actually have to make a claim right? And then you find out the little gotchas in the fine print that the insurance companies live on but specifically with cyber insurance.

And you know, I personally have seen several different Trends number one. It's not an excuse. For good security hygiene for good cyber hygiene, right as a matter of fact, I think the role insurances playing is that it's enforcing better cyber hygiene and it's like as you say it's not just filling out an application anymore.

These cyber insurance companies are becoming the enforces you got. Oh, yeah cyber policy, right and there they're saying hey, you're MFA is weak you that is weak your your you know, your process is bad. And so they are now specifically with ransomware though.

I think again you hit on something before which is When I when you know the bad guys know they're dealing with an insurance company. It's kind of like, you know attorneys dealing with insurance companies. Look they know.

They're dealing with professionals. It's going to be a business decision. The emotions are out of it and it's strictly a business.

Right and we're gonna do a business deal where you know, when when you've got your company and someone's holding your gun to your head for your company. It's emotional, right and you're you're you think you're dealing with a different thing on the other hand though. I've heard stories of where the insurance company says.

Don't talk to the ransom people. Let us talk to them. We know who these people are and no, we're not gonna pay them.

Yeah, right and you your company's hanging by a threat. Yeah that that's very true. Most of first of all the comment about insurance being enforcer it's absolutely true because in the beginning was like, okay, we everybody has business insurance and suddenly.

Oh there's a cyber Insurance maybe insurance company can make a little bit more money right initially was like that then when they got hit by the rent zones, they realize you know, these companies need to get a lot better. So initial checkboxes survey bastings are not going to be enough to convince the ensure or the underwriter that you're ready. So I think the what you're gonna see in industry in insurance industry is they're gonna start working with cyber security vendors or you know xdr platforms or Sim platforms to provide those signals constantly because that snapshot of last weeks of posture is not good enough with today, right and this the second thing you touch down, which is related to The ransomware scenario where yes, if you think about like you take your car accident, you know, go to go fix your car.

If you have insurance versus you just pay out a pocket you may get two different prices because what's really happening is that insurance company does make money when they are not have to pay off lots of rent some lots of situations. So all that premium thing is now working towards at the same kind of pattern for rent some more attack and digital cyber insurance. So to me, I think it's just always good to be ready and have to write posture you have you can answer the question for the insurance company like having a you know, smoke detector in your house kind of thing.

Right? Do you have other right things and you can show them, you know, it's constant. It's not just a snapshot, you know last week.

It's constantly signaling and and protecting you all that enforces better. Posture overall. It reduces the chance of actually like a full exposure or really damaging ransomware attacks.

And yeah, negotiations ensure insurance companies are probably better at it because they have faced the same criminals multiple times for different companies. So they they're sort of the broker in this case where yeah, if you if you try to take the matter into your own hands, it may not have a good outcome. Yeah, I agree with what they're saying.

Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely.

It's why we're overtime already but there's a lot more in this report. I I encourage people to go get it. Where can they go?

com. We have this report, you know, basically in a special link. com, but you can you can find it online pretty easily.

com. You'll find the 2023 Ransom run somewhere insights report. It's a PDF file.

You can download there's no paper wall. Fantastic, man. That's great Fleming.

Hey, it's great to see you here. Keep up the great work. Say hi to everyone to Barracuda for us.

Thank you so much. Yeah, it's great. Thank you here forming.

Shy CTO Barracuda networks here on techstrug TV. We're gonna take a break. We'll be right back.