RANSOMWARE: CYBER-THUGS WANT YOUR BITCOIN
Ransomware is a malicious software created by cyber-thugs who got picked on when they were young. These cyber-thugs are an organization that can’t get any money from their country so they prey on the US. Most RW variants are coming out of Russia, Ukraine, North Korea, China and India. Extorting US instead of their country helps the hackers avoid prosecution.
Ransomware
- There are two basic types of RW circulating today are.
- Most common type is crypto RW, which encrypts personal data and files.
- Then there is Locker RW which is designed to lock the computer, preventing victims from using it.
- Bitcoin is the primary currency demanded, with the average ransom demand being about $1000 per user/system. Don’t be the next victim!
- Over 1$ Billion paid by U.S. companies in RW Extortions in 2017.
- In 2015-2016, we can see exponential growth of this attack vector.
- International legislation and compliance standards have evolved to require companies to report successful RW attacks.
- Cyber criminals are shifting the threat away from disruption and toward computing resource hijacking.
- On average somewhere in the world there is one attack every 40 seconds. This means there is about 2600 attacks per day.
