Critical to develop intuitive solutions
Ransomware is very much here to stay. First and foremost, ransomware should not be considered a technology threat; rather it is a criminal tactic that exploits any set of endpoint vulnerabilities.
The age-old crimes of theft, fraud and extortion have merely found new homes in a cyberspace. It is important to note that criminal enterprises require the ability to anonymize and subsequently launder their ill-gotten gains.
This involves operating in cash, making online analogies to traditional property crimes difficult. Certainly credit card fraud has been a key factor, but often those losses are borne by financial institutions. The real game changer has been the advent of crypto-currencies, in particular Bitcoin.
With Bitcoin, cyber criminals are now in a position to engage in traditional extortion schemes against end users. Unlike banks which team with highly motivated law enforcement agencies to discourage financial crimes, end users often have little recourse in recovering lost data. Pay up or else.
Ransomware will continue to plague consumers and businesses relying on most endpoint computing platforms for the foreseeable future and it is important that industry develops intuitive solutions.
These solutions include disaster recovery solutions, data and computing isolation solutions such as Authentic8 Silo, compelling training and awareness for the broader population, as well as continuous technical and law enforcement prosecution of malfeasance.
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