Lena Connolly and David S. Wall,
The news out this week is that twenty-two US cities have been targeted so far in 2019 and that 170 county, city, or state government systems have been targeted by ransomware attacks since 2013. This is in addition to attacks on many thousands of corporate businesses. In response, 227 city mayors at the 2019 annual US Conference of Mayors pledged that they will not pay a ransom. The crippling crypto-ransomware attacks upon Baltimore, Lake City and Riviera Beach and various large multi-nationals such as Maersk, illustrate the increasing resilience of cybercriminals to maintain ransomware’s position as a major cybersecurity threat. It also illustrates that Cyber-security professionals need to get more cybercrime savvy about crypto-ransomware.
N.B. Links to The Rise of Crypto-Ransomware in a Changing Cybercrime Landscape
Connolly, A. and Wall, D.S. (2019) ‘Cyber security: Think like the enemy’,Computing , 16th July, https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/opinion/3078977/cyber-security-think-like-the-enemy