Page 36 - Cyber Warnings

The best practices in dealing with ransomware

By Milica D. Djekic

Our society is becoming dependable on new technologies in the both – legal and illegal
connotation. The hacker’s community is getting bigger and bigger and it’s right time to take
some actions on to appropriately handle those threats.

Combating the cybercrime is not an easy task – especially if we take into account how skillful
and sophisticated today’s security concerns could be. One of the most mature malware the
black market is dealing with is ransomware. This sort of malicious application is well-developed
and quite capable to lock your computer or some files and data being allocated within your IT
infrastructure.

Through this article – we would talk a bit more about how those malware could get hazardous to
anyone’s systems and what some of the best practices in fighting this challenge could be.

What is the ransomware?

The ransomware is a computer’s malware that is capable to lock your system or some files and
data and in order to unlock them it seeks the ransom as a way of financial compensation. This
sort of the malicious piece of software is the product of the cybercrime’s underground and it
literally works as a quite sophisticated blackmail machine. There are two main types of this
malware and they are locker ransomware and crypto ransomware.

The cyber criminals dealing with this sort of a business would do that for a reason they would
obtain the reliable source of incomes once they find the right targets. They would not get
selective about their victims – they would target anyone being willing to pay the ransom. The
average ransom on the black market is around $300, while some common range of prices is
between $200 and $800 per a file.

According to some sources – the total economical loss being caused with this sort of a
cybercrime was more than $24 million in 2015 and the next year the level of infections with this
sort of malware increased by more than 500%.

Obviously – it’s a huge concern to the entire legal environment. Also, we would mention that this
type of malware would firstly get used in Russia and very soon it would get a threat in the
western countries as well.

Today – the most threatened country being affected with this sort of product is the US being
followed with the rest of developed economies.

36 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – April 2017 Edition
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