Secretive gangs are hacking the computer systems of governments, corporations, even hospitals, and demanding large sums. But when we pay these ransoms, are we making a ticking time bomb?
They’ve the form of names that solely teenage boys or aspiring Bond villains would dream up (REvil, Grief, Wizard Spider, Ragnar), they base themselves in nations that don’t cooperate with worldwide legislation enforcement and so they don’t care whether or not they assault a hospital or a multinational company. Ransomware gangs are out of the blue in all places, seemingly unstoppable – and really profitable.
In June, meat producer JBS, which provides over a fifth of all the meat within the US, paid a £7.8m ransom to regain entry to its laptop techniques. The identical month, the US’s largest nationwide gasoline pipeline, Colonial Pipeline, paid £3.1m to ransomware hackers after they locked the corporate’s techniques, inflicting days of gasoline shortages and paralysing the east coast. “It was the toughest choice I’ve made in my 39 years within the power trade,” mentioned a deflated-looking Colonial CEO Joseph Blount in an proof session earlier than Congress. In July, hackers attacked software program agency Kaseya, demanding £50m. Consequently, a whole lot of supermarkets needed to shut in Sweden, as a result of their money registers didn’t work.
Proceed studying…
Source link
