Growing ransomware attacks

WHILE one part of the world remains immersed in territorial warfare — Russian tanks versus Ukrainian missiles — another attacker, which is not so much in the news, has been gaining strength over the years. As businesses increasingly operate digitally, computer hackers now wield weapons that have the potential to shut down billion-dollar enterprises, eradicating revenue and collecting the data of millions of unsuspecting people who have few means of protecting themselves. The past couple of weeks have seen some major ransomware attacks, in which the hackers threaten to take down digital systems or misuse data unless they are paid huge sums of money. A few days ago, various news sources reported that a new ransomware group called ransomed.vc had allegedly hacked Sony. The hackers announced they had successfully breached Sony’s systems, and that because Sony had not agreed to pay them, they were putting up its data for sale. While Sony itself did not confirm the news, the malware group says it has accessed around 6,000 of Sony’s files. It must be noted that corporations often keep information about ransomware attacks away from the public because they do not want to eviscerate consumer confidence in the security of their data.