The internet has become part of our everyday lives for the good and the bad. Internet crime is more common than you think. Crime can happen to anyone from a personal computer level to a company’s database. What many hacker’s have been doing is encrypting files and holding it hostage, demanding a ransom for the decryption key needed to restore the files. In simpler terms this is called crypto-ransomware. There are harmful programs that are part of crypto-ransomware and can affect computers and mobile devices. Many cybersecurity companies can’t stress enough on how to protect files and stay safe on the internet.
This report will discuss the background of crypto-ransomware, the problems that people face with crypto-ransomware, the software’s/programs used to cause the ransomware, some recent attacks on American soil pipelines and how they dealt with the issue that the malware caused and a attack on a hospital. Finally some recommendations on how to avoid a crypto-ransomware attack on a personal level or a major company level.
The first cases of crypto-ransomware were seen in the 1980s and it mainly affected the medical industry. It was reported that 20,000 floppy disks were encrypted with fake files that were supposed to help researchers with the AIDs outbreak. It reached about 90 countries and they claimed that the files encrypted their computers and locked them up for ransom. The ransom would be for $398.00 US dollars.
Crypto-ransomware encrypts a file by scrambling the content that it becomes unreadable and only a decryption key that can cost an average of 170,404 as of 2020. An example of the malware in an email can be “[[{“fid”:”18076″,”view_mode”:”default”,”fields”:{“format”:”default”,”alignment”:””,”field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]”:”Screenshot via EDTS.”,”field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]”:”Screenshot via EDTS.”},”type”:”media”,”field_deltas”:{“2”:{“format”:”default”,”alignment”:””,”field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]”:”Screenshot via EDTS.”,”field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]”:”Screenshot via EDTS.”}},”attributes”:{“alt”:”Screenshot via EDTS.”,”title”:”Screenshot via EDTS.”,”class”:”media-element file-default”,”data-delta”:”2″}}]].” A person clicks this link and does not think twice that someone now has access to all the files on your hard drive or database.
