Combat Malware!

Jonni Bidwell wants to turn the tide on ransomware in 2022. It appears he has his work cut out for him…

- By Jonni Bidwell

These days we’re never far from cybercrime-themed headlines. What was very much in the realms of sci-fi a couple of decades ago has become almost commonplace today.

In the past few years we’ve seen largescale attacks against Ukraine’s power grid, Sony Pictures, the Colonial Oil Pipeline, JBL-SA( the world’s largest meat supplier) and South African shipping firm Transnet. Such attacks often aim to cause damage and disruption (the power grid attack left hundreds of thousands without power for hours). And sometimes the aim is political. For example, the Sony Pictures hack is widely believed to have originated from North Korea, with hackers demanding The Interview (a Kim Jong Un-themed comedy) be withdrawn. Which it was, although not before gigabytes of embarrassing emails and personal information on Sony Pictures staff was shared.

Latterly though, hackers are financially motivated. They want their targets to pay (usually in cryptocurrency), either to restore access to their systems, or to avoid sensitive information being publicised. The last three attacks mentioned above all occurred in 2021, and are examples of such ransomware attacks. Ransom demands can be high too: the Colonial Pipeline hackers received $10 million (most of which was recovered), and prolific (but now defunct) ransomware outfit REvil requested $70 million following a supply chain attack on managed software company Kaseya. Thanks to the ease with which fiat currency could be exchanged for Bitcoin, ransomware attacks launched against home users have proven profitable, too.