What Is a Ransomware Attack, and How Is It Affecting the Companies

As you may have heard, Ransomware is a malicious program that encrypts your files, making them unreadable and useless to you.

It may include redemption payment instructions, usually by sending a cryptocurrency to obtain the decryption key.

Successful Ransomware attacks typically use vital, time-sensitive systems.

Victims, such as public services and medical facilities, are more likely to have poor or zero recovery processes, leaving governments or insurance providers to reward attackers with ransom payments.

What’s the Idea Behind Ransomware

The idea behind Ransomware, a form of malware, is simple: Lock and encrypt the data on the victim’s computer or device, and then seek redemption to regain access.

In multiple cases, the victim must meet the cybercriminal at a specific time or risk losing access forever.

And because malware attacks are often deployed by cyber thieves, paying the ransom does not guarantee entry. Ransomware holds your personal files hostage, protecting you from your documents, photos, and financial information.

Those files remain on your computer, but malware has encrypted your device, causing the data stored on your computer or mobile device inaccessible.

While the idea behind Ransomware may be simplistic, retaliating when you are the victim of a malicious Ransomware attack can be more complicated.

And if attackers do not give you the decryption key, you may not be able to regain access to your data or device.

Knowing the types of attacks out there, along with some doses and donors around these attacks, can aid protect you from becoming a victim of a Ransomware attack.

How Do Ransomware Attacks Work?

Ransomware fraudsters have also spread to blackmail for data theft. Before activating encryption, they quietly copy sensitive files and threaten to make them public unless they receive their ransom payments.

It can become an issue even for companies that value their networks as ransom protection, as refusing to pay can cost them much more than the ransom they could have negotiated.

The criminal unions who dominate the Ransomware business-speak are mainly Russian and operate with almost impunity outside Russia and its comrades.

Types of Ransomware

Ransomware attacks can take many forms. Some modifications may be more harmful than others, but they all have one thing: a ransom.

Here are six common types of Ransomware:

1. Crypto malware

The crypto-malware form of Ransomware can cause a lot of damage because it encrypts things like your files, folders, and hard drives.

Such a famous example was the destructive WannaCry Ransomware attack in 2017. It targeted thousands of computer systems worldwide running Windows and deploying the company’s networks globally.

The demand from victims is to pay a ransom in Bitcoin to obtain their data.

2. Lockers

Locker Ransomware is known to infect your operating system to lock you entirely out of your computer or device, preventing you from accessing any of your files or applications.

This type of Ransomware is usually based on Android.

Ransomware began to infiltrate on a large scale into mobile devices in 2014.

What is happening? Mobile Ransomware is mainly delivered through a malicious application, which leaves a message on your device saying that it has been locked due to illegal activity.

3. Scareware

Scareware is rogue software that acts as an antivirus or cleaning tool.

The scanner often claims to have detected problems on your computer, asking for money to fix the issues.

Some types of plastic computers lock your computer while others flood your screen with annoying alerts and pop-up messages.

4. Doxware

Doxware threatens to publish your stolen information on the Internet if you do not pay a ransom to publish it as software tablets or extortion software.

With so many people saving sensitive files and personal photos on their computers, it is probably not wondrous that some people panic and pay a ransom when their files are hijacked.

5. RaaS

Identified as “Ransomware as a Service”, RaaS is a type of malware that a hacker anonymously organizes.

These cybercriminals deal with everything from Ransomware distribution and payment collection to decryption management. For instance, software that restores access to data in exchange for reducing their ransom.

6. Mac Ransomware

Their first Ransomware infiltrated Mac operating systems in 2016.

Known as KeRanger, this malware-infected Apple’s user systems through an application called Transmission, which could encrypt its victims’ files after it was launched.

Still, companies are in big trouble when they are confronting with Ransomware attacks. They are aware that protection is a must, and most of them are yet to enhance their protection.

To be fully protected, you have to start discovering the proper protection, backup, and recovery methods and consider having a default backup from the software in regular usage.

A tsunami of new Ransomware is already hitting hundreds of companies around the world.

This is precisely what happened in early July 2021. The notorious criminal group REvil successfully encrypted hundreds of company files in one fell swoop, apparently thanks to a hacked IT management program.

And this is just the beginning.

The impact was already severe and would only worsen given the nature of the targets — which means if you succeed in hacking MSP, you will suddenly reach their customers. It’s the difference between breaking the safe-deposit boxes one by one and stealing the skeleton key of the bank manager.

You may begin to see why an MSP to supply chain attack can potentially have exponential consequences. Discard the Ransomware that corrupts the system, and the situation will become much more difficult.

When a single MSP is hacked, it can affect hundreds of end-users. In this case, it appears that many MSPs have been hacked, so all the companies worldwide should be noticed.

Companies should learn more about being protected and working smoothly without unnecessary headaches and stressful situations.

Learn how to create a robust backup and DR strategy by downloading the FREE eBook called The Backup Bible for MSPs.

Not only that, your data is your lifeline, and a significant data loss can cause irreparable damage.

So be in touch with the FREE eBook of The Backup Bible realm as well and get professional help on how to be fully protected from any kind of attack on your critical data.