Following the news that spammers are using Facebook instant messaging to spread Locky ransomware, Dr Malcolm Murphy, Technology Director, Western Europe at Infoblox commented below.
Dr Malcolm Murphy, Technology Director, Western Europe at Infoblox:
“Ransomware has certainly been a dominating trend in cyber in 2016, with the Infoblox DNS Threat Index reporting a 3,500 per cent increase in domains that either hosted or communicated with malicious ransomware downloads was recorded in the first quarter of the year. While the malware certainly poses a threat to consumers and their personal data, the risk to businesses and public services is far greater. The case of the LA hospital that was shut down by ransomware earlier this year shows the extent to which these attacks can pose a risk to both operations and patient safety when attacking the health sector. And this is certainly not a trend limited to the US, with a recent FoI request revealing that 28 NHS trusts in England have been victims of ransomware incursions in the last 12 months
“The ransomware trend is only set to increase, with its commoditisation through cyber-crime toolkits allowing even the most novice criminal to deploy it. All organisations must ensure that their security measures are up to scratch: from having all software patched and up to date and making sure users observe best practice, to deploying DNS effectively as an enforcement point to block ransomware. Businesses should also ensure that all data is clean, secured and regularly backed-up. Without a clean, back-up copy, its data is perpetually at risk.”
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