Tuesday, March 29, 2016

The Evolution of Ransomware

A recent study titled, "Battling the Big Hack," by IT professional network Spiceworks, found that 80% of organizations experienced an IT security incident in 2015, with 53% of respondents having a concern for ransomware in 2016. But, how did we get here? And how can we avoid these growing attacks in the coming year and beyond? In general, all ransomware pretty much works the same in that it tries to extort money from a user, but each variation of it does something slightly different.

This article discusses the history of ransomware from the first known ransomware to GPCode (RSA encryption schemes), CryptoLocker (Bitcoin transactions), Cryptowall (targeting Windows), and  Locky with many others in between. It closes out the discussion with 2016 ransomware predictions, as well as how to mitigate future malware attacks.

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