Ransomware is a type of malware that stops users from accessing their data until a ransomware payment is arranged. The money is usually paid in cryptocurrencies to avoid any kind of detection. Ransomware criminals trick you into clicking on infected links. They usually do this by copying the general look of an email to mask their nefarious intentions. Organizations interviewed by CyberSecOp say they experience data loss and major downtime as the result of a ransomware attack. Both of these outcomes are extremely costly for a business, especially larger ones with hundreds of employees. Significant downtime can result in millions of dollars of lost revenue and decreased consumer trust.
Cybercriminals Career Path is Ransomware
If you were considering becoming a cybercriminal or were perhaps a traditional villain looking to upgrade your skills for the 21st century, I’m sure your business model of choice would be running a ransomware operation. You would, thanks to the simplicity of platforms like Ransomware as a Service and the willingness of victims to pay ransomware fees.
The reason why Ransomware most common attack vector
The main reason for the runaway success of ransomware as a malware attack vector is its effectiveness and ability to generate money for cybercriminals. Anonymous payment services like Bitcoin make ransomware payment simple for victims and risk-free for the ransomware owners. Companies are even starting to keep a Bitcoin ransom ready if they are affected and cannot recover from the attack.
Ransomware big newsmakers
The biggest news-maker for 2019 is the Baltimore City government. The city’s computer system was hit with a ransomware infection in May 2019 that kept the city’s government crippled for over a month. Estimates put the cost to recover at over 18 million dollars, although the cybercriminal behind the ransomware only demanded $76,000 worth of Bitcoin. The attack reportedly impacted vaccine production, ATMs, airports, and hospitals. Just about a year earlier, the Atlanta city government spent over $17 million to recover from a ransomware attack that demanded $52,000 in Bitcoin.
The big tech giants are getting hit by ransomware too
Popular software as a service (SaaS) applications are being targeted by ransomware too. A study involving several multiple service providers found that Dropbox, Office 365, G Suite, Azure, and Amazon Web Services have experienced ransomware attacks in some form.
Ransomware Demand cost increases
At the same time, the average ransomware demands have increased rapidly to $36,000 in the second quarter of 2019. But this number understates the risk as perpetrators have adopted a more sophisticated pricing model which charges larger organizations much higher ransoms to unlock their data. Rivera Beach, FL, for example, had to pay $600,000 to unlock the city records encrypted by a ransomware gang while Korean hosting company Nayana paid $1m to unlock 3,400 hosted websites. Refusing to pay can cost even more as Norwegian aluminum maker Norsk Hydro learned when they spent $58m in the first half of 2019 to remediate the ransomware attack they experienced in March. The company’s Q1 profit also fell 82% due to production downtime caused by the attack. The implications for security professionals of these trends are clear. The time has come to move from a strictly defensive posture vis-à-vis ransomware to a more offensive strategy focused on finding and fixing vulnerabilities that can be exploited by ransomware.
