Ransomware's New Blackmail Tactics
2020-03-19When a company like LinkedIn or Tumblr gets purchased, or when Snapchat or Twitter go public, it's no secret that it's not just the snaps and tweets that make them so lucrative. It's their data that can boost their perceived worth. Data is rapidly becoming a strategic asset with just as much value as a company's finances. Gartner even says that within five years, organizations will be valued on their information portfolios.
Your data can make a big difference in how valuable it is. Where census data might be free and available to everyone, your insights from that data might drive your business to be much more profitable.Ransomware is a type of malicious software that blocks access to a computer system or data, usually by encrypting it, until the victim pays a fee to the attacker. In many cases, the ransom demand comes with a deadline. If the victim doesn’t pay in time, the data is gone forever. Cybercriminals will attack any consumer or any business and victims come from all industries.
Ransomware attacks across the globe has been taking out the sails of the smooth sailing IT and other enterprises for quite sometime now. The methodologies has been wide and varied starting from social engineering and finally ending up encrypting data and making a neat sum out of it. *Even by the chequered genealogy of this trade ransomware gangs posting highly-sensitive documents to pressure victims to pay up can be reaching the nadir of this trade.
The documents being traded includes classified reports on multiple-million-dollar strategies of Fortune 50 companies and other dangerous secrets. Criminals are known to he ingenious and a cyber criminal has to be a few notches ahead. What better use can be the hostage data be put to? Instead of making money out of the conventional ransomware attack, this can turn out to the golden goose. The game changer is realising the value data encrypted and kept hostage is much inferior to the inherent value of data to be manipulated.This hits at the business existence of the company.
Ransomware gangs have recently posted highly sensitive documents. These are the modern gangsters. These documents have been stolen from different companies. It includes classified business information, a confidential diagram from a defense contractor & power plants documents. An extremely nuanced system has been put in place. This is the interplay of releasing data as well as locking it up with encryption.This strategy turns up the heat on victims of ransomware. It is a $170 billion global problem today.
Ransomware hackers hacked Japan-based cybersecurity firm Emsisoft. The key documents of the company were leaked after three recent ransomware attacks. The hacking group is well-known. Visser Precision, was hit by the *DoppelPaymer ransom group, which posted Visser’s data relating to Lockheed Martin etc. An international consulting firm was hit by the , REvil ransomware group,posted the consultants’ data on the dark web. Industrial power systems manufacturer was hacked by Maze ransomware group.The clock is ticking. The million dollar question is whether to ”pay criminals to release their data – which they often don’t do, anyway – or suffer downtime as they try to bring their computer systems back up and reclaim their data.”
EVALUATING THE VALUE OF DATA AND THEN RLEASE WHERE IS HURTS MOST IS PRECARIOUSLY TREACHEROUS.
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