Three Reasons to Worry About Ransomware.
Ransomware is a type of malware that that infects your device and either prevents you using the device or accessing your data, it will then ask you for a ransom (payment) to regain to control and decrypt your data.
It should be stressed that even if you pay the ransom there is no guarantee that you will get your data back. This type of malware is becoming increasingly common and it is far from harmless, did you that;
- It is targeting hospitals: Hospitals hold some of the most important data around medical records, histories of treatments, notes on patients and their allergies and needs. Without this data people can die.This might why hospitals pay up tens of thousands of pounds when hit (though there is no guarantee of getting the data back as several hospitals have found out this year).Hackers know this and are now targeting them specifically in order to get big pay days and this is putting people lives at risk. So the next time you or one of your loved ones is in hospital you had better hope that their cyber security is up to scratch.
- It is impossible to avoid: A recent trend with ransomware is to spread it using Malvertsing this where adverts can deliver malware with no action from the user.Malvertsing can be on any website including trusted and reputable websites. Through strategic Malvertsing campaigns billions of internet user have been exposed to being infected with ransomware.Malvertsing isn’t the only way to spread ransomware; traditional spam emails with infected attachments, hacked websites, social media and physical memory devices (such as USB memory sticks) are all used to make sure that you can’t avoid it.Sophisticated strains are also targeting back-up to make it impossible to recover from without paying up.
- It is taking your money: Ransomware is proving massively profitable as cyber criminals racking millions from the infected victims and so there is no way they are going to stop any time soon.It is proving so profitable that some cyber criminals are offering it as ransomware kits as a service to other criminals making easy for them to spread their own ransomware infections.So the question is why is it proving so profitable and the answer is people pay. Many authorities including the FBI recommend that you pay the ransom if you have no back-ups as the encryption that is used on your files is often impossible to crack without the key.With such advice many people who get infected and don’t have backup do pay-up. So the final question of the day, do you have a reliable back-up solution in place?
