Page 61 - Cyber Defense eMagazine June 2020 Edition

Cyber Crime is Paying

What the Evolution of Ransomware Means for the Security Industry

By Ricardo Arroyo, Senior Technical Product Manager, WatchGuard Technologies

If you were talk to a retired police officer or FBI agent about kidnappings, they will tell you not to pay the
ransom. Criminals are not bound by any sort of honor requiring them to stick to the deal. Many times,
threats to the lives of the kidnapped are still carried out in spite of the ransom being paid. Paying the
ransom also emboldens the criminal kidnap more often. In some countries, kidnappings are so lucrative,
it's become a big business. The last 18 months of ransomware incidents have shown an escalation that
mirrors that of kidnapping enterprises.

While ransomware is not about kidnapping real
people, it is about holding something almost as
important for ransom, your information. Today,
we spend a majority of our working and
recreation time on the internet. We play games
online, we video call online, we work online and
we shop online. We even bank online. All this
requires us to confirm we are who we are and
allowing our personal information or company
proprietary data to be held by a criminal means

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