Page 14 - Cyber Warnings

Ransomware: The Great White Shark of Malware, and What You

Need to do About it

‘STOP! Are you really sure you want to load this attachment? Are you certain that this link is
safe?’

A prompt from your computer may be the difference between a disastrous Ransomware
infection and a regular day at the office.

Right now, Ransomware is the Great White Shark of cyber-attacks, the most feared malware of
all, and both corporate and home users are running scared.

And rightly so - Anyone who has had experience with Ransomware, will attest to the agony and
disruption.

But instead of worrying about an attack, what action can be taken to safely venture back into the
water and not necessarily “with a bigger Boat”?

Who should be aware of the Ransomware threat?

Home User: The home-user community for ransomware has been highly active for a few years
now but has escalated in recent months. Being given just hours to either pay the ransom or lose
permanent access to everything on your personal computer is a stark choice (often enough to
precipitate agreement to the extortion).

What value would you put on all your personal documents, photos, music, etc?

Corporate User: The stakes are even higher for a corporation, where the absolute dependency
on IT systems means ransomware could threaten the very life of the business itself.

In the case of the LA Presbyterian Hospital, this threat to life was more literal, in that patient
systems were under threat from Ransomware – the hospital paid the equivalent of $17,000
dollars in BitCoin as the “quickest and most efficient way to restore our systems and
administrative functions”; and just like that a dangerous precedent was set! More details later.

How does Ransomware typically attack systems?

Email – phishing, be it the mass, spear or now whale variety for corporate targets – is still the
most common means of invoking a Ransomware attack. The home-user ‘market’ for the
extortionists lends itself to mass-emailing, but this means that the malware can just as easily
end up on Corporate Workstations.

14 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – July 2016 Edition
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