The Year 2018 will see Ransomware on the Rise

In the year 2015, we saw how ransomware created havoc across the world inflicting some $350 million damage, and the trend followed in 2016 with $850. Last year it stood at $5 million. The most talked about was WannaCry, which literally shut down computers in 80 organizations. The most affected was Britain’s Health service. After this, another ransomware called NotPetya hit the world.

The success of ransomware was mainly because of their ability to encrypt and lock system from a remote location. The demanding of money paid-off since the user has no choice but to accept the demand. The adaptability of encryption has given the creators of ransomware the tool to seize any computer. Then came the cryptocurrencies that allowed them to encash the ransom, which made it difficult for the agencies to trace them.

Interestingly, in 2017 we saw a different kind of ransomware that has the ability to self-replicate and infect new systems on its own. We learned how the latest of the ransomware used the existing vulnerability in Microsoft products, for which the patches were already released. Those companies who implemented the patches saved their infrastructure and those who couldn’t had a tough time.

Nevertheless, if vulnerability is for a short period, but what we need to see here is how ransomware is able to take advantage of the vulnerabilities and turn them into a profitable deal. This means the problem is not going to end anywhere in the near future. In 2018 we are going to see more of it. It is now estimated that after every 40 seconds there is a ransomware attack in the world, and this is likely to scale up to 19-seconds in the current year.

Related Blogs

https://hackercombat.com/2018-likely-year-massive-cyber-attacks-bigger-wannacry-notpetya/

https://hackercombat.com/hackercombat-special-notable-ransomware-attacks-2017/