”Prime Century for Cyber-criminals”
Gone are the days of roadside bandits and thieves, the 21st century has brought with its own set of challenges where the bandits hold on to the possession you care the most which are your data be it your personal or professional data. The digital age and explosion of data we consume and produce have become the new target to be held ransom to be aware and wake up.
What is Ransomware?
Ransomware is a malicious software/ malware which slips into your systems without raising suspicion and breeds into your network multiples and gathers information and holds them hostage until a ransom is paid.
History of Ransomware:
The first well-documented attack of ransomware was back in the year 1989 which was called the AIDS Trojan also called PC Cyborg a Harvard biologist named Joseph L. Poop sent 20,000 inflicted floppy disks labelled AIDS information to attendees of the World Health Organization’s international AIDS conference.
After the target has loaded the floppy into their computers and excitedly after 90 reboots, the hidden Trojan hid directories and encrypted the names of the files in the personal computer. In order to regain access, the user would have to spend 189$ in favour of PC Cyborg Corp at a post office in Panama.
Later in the year 1996, Adam L. Young and Moti Yung from Columbia University presented a concept called Cryptoviral extortion, in their presentation they criticized the AIDS Trojan for fatal flaws stating that it used single encryption and decryption key and hence could be extracted from the Trojan itself, Young and Moti improved on the first version and developed hybrid encryption so the malware only possessed the encryption key.
Later in the year 2013 a version of ransomware of, Young and Moti was reported at West Point -The United States Military Academy. This version of the gained access to the victim’s data and does not encrypt the files instead releases the data mined in the process to a public domain until a price is paid and targeted to cause damage to the victim’s reputation. This is called leakware or doxware.
Starting for the year 2006, ransomware attacks grew at an exponential rate with new Trojans such as Archiveus, Cryzip and Gpcode to name a few. As ransomware’s prominence grew the encryption level behind it improved exponentially where ransomware was discovered using 1024-bit RSA key, believed to be so large it could not be broken without a distributed effort.
Ransomware that made headlines :
In late 2013 September, a trojan known as Cryptolocker attacked an unaccounted number of systems to make it to the headlines the ransomware used a 2048-bit RSA key when uploaded in the system it could command and control which file extensions it could encrypt. The malware would threaten to delete the encrypted data if the ransom was not paid in the form of digital coins or a list of per- paid cash cards within three days of the attack. It was eventually taken down by the Justice Department of the United States in June 2014. It is estimated that Cryptolocker extorted $ 3 Million Dollars before it was taken down.
In early 2017, systems all over the world were crippled by ransomware called ‘The Wanna Cry Ransomware’. It is said to have attacked more than 230,000 machines in over 150 countries. And it used an exploited called EternalBlue developed by the UnitedStates of National Security Agency
Cost of a Ransomware attack on your business:
On average for the year 2020, there were 220 million attacks of ransomware attacks. The UK intelligence service suggests ransomware payments are totalling around £ 1 billion Pounds and above every ear and have seen an increase of 20 % year on year.
Despite the decline of malware attacks ransomware attacks have short up 195% since the last two years.
Top five UK Ransomware attacks:
NHS: In the year 2017, The NHS UK’s National Health Service was brought to a standstill due to WannaCry ransomware, affecting more than 200,000 computer’s in over 150 countries connected to the NHS network worldwide. The operations were reverted by using pens and paper and use mobile phone’s after the attack targeted key systems including telephones.
Reckitt Benckiser: British Pharmaceutical maker was a victim of ransomware called NotPetya and cost them a total of £ 107 Million pounds in lost revenue and cleanup costs due to the ransomware.
British and Foreign Bible Society: The Swindon based society was fined £ 100,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office putting supporters payment card and bank details at risk.
Police Federation of England and Wales: The year 2019, Surrey headquarters of the staff was hit by ransomware which affected over 119,000 police offices across 43 forces in England and Wales.
Gremlin Unveiled: A ransomware attack encrypted several databases and resulted in an investigation from the Information Commissioner’s Office and a fine of the unverified amount.
Ransomware is here to stay:
As we use more data and the world becomes more digital and dependent on data only a good network and security hygiene might avoid such attack’s.Success rates of the ransomware are very high and it’s imperative for institutions to keep multiple backups of its vital data very frequently.
If your system is compromised or if you would like to be prepared you can contact us at info@rootfloe.com for a free consultation.
