I posted this article in another class, but I thought I should share it here as well. \u00a0We should all be familiar with ransomware and how it works. If not, the basics is simple; a hacker infiltrates a computers, either through phishing, embedded links, or Trojans, and encrypts the files on the computer. \u00a0For the victim to have the files decrypted, a payment in bitcoins is usually demanded.<\/p>\n
Ransomware has been in existence since 1989, but really made its mark in the recent years. \u00a0Why? it’s simple really, more and more people are using digital storage technologies to store information. \u00a0Consumers are storing anything from financial data, credit information, medical history, and even sentimental things such as pictures and videos. \u00a0Organizations are storing a lot more information that are sensitive, proprietary, or files that are critical to their day-to-day business. \u00a0Knowing this hackers exploits it by using ransomware and bitcoin payment method, making it virtually impossible to trace.<\/p>\n
While most law enforcement agencies have encouraged victims to payout the demand, there are organizations out there teaming up to combat this. \u00a0Europol, Kaspersky Labs, Intel Security, among others have started the “No Ransom Project” back in July 2016. \u00a0The purpose of the project is to provide the victims of ransomware free tools to decyrpt the files. \u00a0Thus far, they were able to decrypt about 24 variants of ransomware. \u00a0Although this is a small number compared to the average growth of 10 new ransomware family per month (TrendMicro, 2016), it is a good start. \u00a0As more and more organizations begin to share or join with the “No Ransom Project,” the number of decryption tools will begin to grow. \u00a0However, this doesn’t mean that we should not take preventative measures to protect ourselves.<\/p>\n
Listing of Available Decryption Tools:\u00a0https:\/\/www.nomoreransom.org\/decryption-tools.html
\nDark Reading Article:\u00a0http:\/\/www.darkreading.com\/threat-intelligence\/6-free-ransomware-decryption-tools\/d\/d-id\/1327999
\nTrendMicro Article:\u00a0https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/vinfo\/us\/security\/news\/cybercrime-and-digital-threats\/ransomware-recap-new-families-updated-variants-in-june<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I posted this article in another class, but I thought I should share it here as well. \u00a0We should all be familiar with ransomware and how it works. If not, the basics is simple; a hacker infiltrates a computers, either through phishing, embedded links, or Trojans, and encrypts the files on the computer. \u00a0For the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8346,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[715219],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3166","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-week-03-it-administrative-controls","7":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8j0Bl-P4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.mis.temple.edu\/mis5212sec001sp2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.mis.temple.edu\/mis5212sec001sp2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.mis.temple.edu\/mis5212sec001sp2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.mis.temple.edu\/mis5212sec001sp2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8346"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.mis.temple.edu\/mis5212sec001sp2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/community.mis.temple.edu\/mis5212sec001sp2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3167,"href":"https:\/\/community.mis.temple.edu\/mis5212sec001sp2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166\/revisions\/3167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.mis.temple.edu\/mis5212sec001sp2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.mis.temple.edu\/mis5212sec001sp2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.mis.temple.edu\/mis5212sec001sp2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}