The rising threat of human-controlled ransomware

Of all the potentially disruptive and costly cyber threats faced by legal firms today, one of the most significant is ransomware attacks.

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Cybercriminals manage to inject malicious code into an IT infrastructure where it then encrypts vital data stores, preventing access by staff. The criminals then demand a ransom payment in exchange for the decryption keys. Until recently, most ransomware attacks have been automated affairs. Attackers try to spread their code as widely as possible in the hope of infecting and locking down systems.

However, things are now changing. There is a rise in so-called human-controlled ransomware that is much more targeted and potentially dangerous. As the name suggests, these attacks are not automated but rather manually controlled by a cyber-criminal in real-time.

Read the complete SecurityBrief Europe article by Jim Cook.