How ransomware could cripple countries, not just companies
IN OCTOBER CYBER-CRIMINALS hacked into the British Library, a storied institution in the heart of London, encrypted its data and demanded money in exchange for the key. Months later the library and its catalogue of 14m books remain offline, with no end in sight. Similar ransomware attacks—in which criminals encrypt or steal data and demand a ransom to decrypt or refrain from leaking it—are not only undermining business and sapping prosperity across North America and Europe.
Financially motivated attacks on infrastructure, such as schools, hospitals and power utilities, also pose a large and growing threat to national security. Western countries now face what a British parliamentary committee described on December 13th as “a high risk [of] a catastrophic ransomware attack at any moment". The scale of the problem is not easy to measure.
Companies that are hacked or pay a ransom are reluctant to own up to it. Rising numbers can reflect better detection rather than more attacks. But what is clear is that, after a lull in 2022, caused in part by a split between Russian and Ukrainian hackers, ransomware attacks are back at their peak.
Officials expect that 2023 will turn out to be the worst year on record. The number of victims is troubling (see chart). In the four months to October the number listed on “leak sites", where attackers name victims who refuse to pay, was the highest ever recorded, according to Secureworks, a cyber-security firm.
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