Ransomware – Mitigating the Threat
Wed 8 Mar 2017
Over the course of the last few years we have witnessed the increasing trend of hackers attempting to extort money from both private users, and more recently businesses, via the proliferation of various Ransomware Trojans such as CryptoLocker.
These malicious pieces of software are designed to gain access to and encrypt data and files by generating a private-public pair of keys. The data is impossible to decrypt without the private key which is usually stored on the attacker’s server until the ransom is paid. Unfortunately, in many cases even once the ransom has been paid the attackers fail to provide the decryption key leaving victims without their money or their files.
Whilst Ransomware has been around for many years, the more recent advancements in encryption technologies coupled with the ease with which hackers can conceal their identities has resulted in an increase in the number of them adopting this strategy.
