Ransom payments are usually done in Bitcoin to avoid tracking the payment through the normal banking system. Cyber criminals know that a smaller ransom is more likely to be paid and they can then move on to the next victim. Monetarily, ransoms are usually not very large, but there are exceptions. Many organizations can afford to lose a single user PC - but imagine losing all of the company’s information on a central server!
And when the backup network drive is affected there is no way to even restore from that backup.
The mounted drives might even include your backup storage! The encryption of network drives affects a much larger group of users and can be devastating to the organization as a whole. In addition to encrypting a user’s PC or a single server, Ransomware has taken to encrypting network and mounted drives, even drives that are mirrors to cloud storage services. Strong encryption is readily available to anyone including cybercriminals, and unless the attack uses poor encryption methods there is no way to unlock the data without paying the ransom to receive the decryption key.Ī disturbing trend has developed with Ransomware over the last few months. Other methods of access denial have been used, but encryption is now the most common method. CryptoLocker is an example of this type of access denial, but there are now many variants of encrypted access denial. The denial of access to data is often done through the encryption of all of the files on a PC. A trojan program installed on a user PC or server then runs and denies access to that data until a ransom is paid. The basic Ransomware attack usually starts with a user clicking on a poisoned link or opening an infected document or file. The news has been heavy recently with stories of Ransomware attacks on hospitals, businesses, and even police departments.
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