Interview This year marks an unfortunate anniversary for information security: We're told it's been a decade since ransomware began infecting businesses.
WANNACRY: The world's largest ransomware attack (documentary)
Ransomware had been hitting normal people in the early 2010s with file malware. Eventually, criminals figured out that there was much more money to be made by hitting up business networks and demanding big bucks. Since then, the attacks have skyrocketed, showing no signs of letting up, and the data security industry still hasn't found a full and final solution.
Mikko Hyppönen, director of research at WithSecure and all-round infosec industry veteran, will be giving a keynote speech at the RSA conference in San Francisco today on this very topic – and he's not optimistic. The growth in both the number of attacks and the value of Bitcoin has created criminal unicorns with a net worth in the billions, as he explains in the video below.
He argued that while certain sectors such as government and healthcare are certainly attractive to extortionists, these criminals will go after the lowest hanging fruit, meaning poorly secured IT environments are just as tempting. And it's increasingly difficult for victims not to pay when they see their stolen business data leaked online.
