Ransomware and Its Impact on Society

This report provides information about ransomware and its negative impact on society. It analyzes recent ransomware attacks, the working mechanism of ransomware, and the threats posed by ransomware. The report also discusses the social and data privacy implications of ransomware attacks.

SBM4304-IS Security and Risk
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Ransomware and Its Impact on Society.......................................................................................1
Recent Ransomware Attacks.......................................................................................................3
Working Mechanism of Ransomware.........................................................................................4
Threats of Ransomware...............................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6
2017-2019 Ransomware statistics and facts, 2019 [Online]. Available
Through.<https://www.comparitech.com/antivirus/ransomware-statistics/>..................................6

INTRODUCTION
Ransomware is a type of malware that is originated or based on cryptovirology that
threatens to victim's data or information perpetually blocked access to it unless a ransom is paid.
This type of malware and computer viruses are created or developed by computer and network
hackers for unethical use (Mohurle and Patil, 2017). There are different categories of
ransomware and threat from these categories are of different level. The simplest kind of
ransomware can be reversed by simple person who is possessing some knowledge of computers
and programming and the advance level of ransomware uses a technique that is known as
cryptoviral extortion that turn the files of victim in encryption and asked for ransom to decrypt
those files. This is how unethical hackers use a virus to put the victim on threat and asked to pay
to solve the issue of accessibility of different files. This is kind of viruses are threat to society
and this type of malware took the cyber crime to next level. This report is providing information
about ransomware and its negative impact on society. Most recent ransomware attacks are also
analysed in report to evaluate their impact on various social areas. Working mechanism of
ransomware and its threats are also covered in this study.
MAIN BODY
Ransomware and Its Impact on Society
Malware is a software that is designed intentionally to affect computer of target user and
cause damage to a computer server, client, computer, various files and user network. This
malware start working as they are implanted on and operated on personal computer and server of
user. This ransomware is also known as rogueware and scareware. Basically ransomware is a
computer virus that is designed in cryptovirology and stay inactive until this cryptovirologic file
is opened in a computer. On the different level of difficulty damage and working of ransomware
is different. As this software program file is opened in hostage computer it restricts the user to
access the data and files on computer and lock whole system or partial system. As the system got
locked by this program user will not be able to access the files in computer and to unlock the
system user are forced to pay ransom to hackers to remove the restrictions (Brewer, 2016). The
most dangerous ransomwares are WannaCry, Petya, Cerber, CryptoLocker and Locky
ransomware. The ransomware is a normal computer program that is made by highly
knowledgeable and skilled computer hackers and scammers. This ransomware enters a computer
through email attachment or by visiting a website that are infected with this type of malware.
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As a computer get infected with ransomware the user will not be able to access their
device and data. The demand of ransom is presented as a message on the computer screen of
hostage device. In this message user are threatened to publishing their personal data on internet
or block or restrictions on important file and computer. This is how it can be recognized that a
device is infected with ransomware virus. When a malware developed by a hacker it is spread on
the international level through different ways like E-mail and different websites to infect
multiple computer systems to restrict their data and information access. After this infection
victims are asked to provide ransom to regain the access to their device. This mass infection is
known as ransomware attack.
Social Impact
Normally people store their personal information and data on their computers to keep is
safe for further use. The ransomware attack infected many computer and computer network at6
same time. So there are more chances of further information loss. This attack harm people in
both financially and mentally. The reason behind financial loss is the computers that are infected
by ransomware can not be used further and the information stored in computer become encrypted
which not meaningful any more. This force the person to change whole system to get rid of
ransomware. This can cause large financial loss to society. Other impact of ransomware is-
hostage computer encryption make whole data in language that can be used for meaningful
operation and this loss of data put them under huge mental pressure and this is same for all the
computers that are infected with ransomware virus.
Data Privacy
internet is accessed by billions of people everyday for personal and professional use.
Ransomware is a malware that puts the information and data on risk. This malware are
developed by high skilled computer software programmers (Moore, 2016). Their purpose is to
extort money from people whose personal and professional computers are infected by
ransomware (Bhardwaj, 2017). There are major chances of misuse of personal and professional
data & information by hackers. Their personal data and information can be published on social
networking sites that is exactly not ethical and relevant for a persons privacy. This can affect the
personal life of people who are victim of ransomware attack. For the it company that is holding
large amount of personal data of consumer it is largest threat ever and this can put many lives
and carrier in risk.
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Data Security
Different IT companies store different data and information of customer. This data could
be related to their finance details, bank details and maybe it could be personal or family
information. Ransomware is major threat for this companies. It can cause huge loss of data that
can affect many people and communities in a small period. If the system or server of ITech
Company get infected with ransomware then this will be really difficult for organization to
protect the data of people and different communities. This malware can cause intense data leak
of consumer and this will lead both ITech Company and public to loose their important data and
this can cause troubles like financial crisis and this data can be used in unethical way by criminal
minded people.
Recent Ransomware Attacks
There are many computers and personal and professional networks get infected by
viruses and malware every day. On daily basis many computer users are threatened by computer
and network hackers to pay ransom to access and keep secure their personal and important data
and information (Richardson and North, 2017). The most recent and most famous ransomware
attacks were occurred due to famous ransomware malware that are- NotPetya, WannaCry and
Locky ransomware. Huge data loss can be occurred this cyber attack and large amount capital of
people will be required to pay ransom to hacker to get back access to their data and files.
Locky
This is a ransomware malware that was release in year 2016 when security experts found
that author of ransomware is delivering this malware through Email attachment. This malware
was attaches in an invoice of a malicious Microsoft word document that is consists of infectious
macros. As the infectious document opened by user this will not be in readable format and a
dialogue box comes on the screen with a message in a phrase “Enable macros if data encoding is
incorrect” (Laszka, Farhang, S. and Grossklags, J., 2017). This is the social engineering
technique used by the hackers and this is used to pass on the infection. As the user enables the
macros the malware starts operating and a binary file opened up in computer that installs the
encryption trojan that locks all the files and data of user and files of user renamed with
combination of different numbers and letters. The main targets of Locky Ransomware are small
and medium organizations all over world. The top companies that are attacked by Locky
ransomware are Spain, Germany, USA, France, Italy, Great Britain, Czech Republic, Canada and
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Poland in year2016 and under this cyber attack from each hostage victim .5 to1 bitcoin ware
demanded as ransom. It has affected many computers around the world with infection rate of
90000 computer each day. It has infected 400000 victims in first week of attack and each minute
infection rate was 30 computers. There were 114 country comer under this attack.
WannaCry
WannaCry is one of the most dangerous ransomware and this cyber attack through
WannaCry Ransomware was occurred in 2017 on global level. It was a cryptoworm malware and
the targets of this malware are the computers that are consists of Microsoft Windows operating
system. Working of this ransomware is same as other ransomware (2017-2019 Ransomware
statistics and facts, 2019). This malware turned whole user data in encryption and money was
extorted by malware author to set the data free. Author has demanded money through encrypted
currency bitcoin. For each user 300$ to 600$ were demanded to decrypt the user data . There
were 200000 victims of this cyber attack and 300000 computers were affected by this
ransomware virus. The suspects of this cyber attack was lazarus group and two north Koreans
were accused in this ransomware attack.
NotPetya
The Petya is known as family of encrypting ransomware which was discovered in 2016. targets
of this malware was also Microsoft Windows based systems. This ransomware infects the master
boot record to operate a malware payload the encrypt the hard drive table and prevent the
Microsoft Windows from booting process (2017-2019 Ransomware statistics and facts, 2019). In
this case, author has demanded bitcoins to regain the access of the system. This ransomware was
first seen in march 2016 which was propagated from an infected email attachment. In 2017 a
new version of Petya was used by cyber attackers to infect computers and network with
ransomware to extort form hostage computer. Total damage occurred cause of NotPetya was
around 10 Billions.
Working Mechanism of Ransomware
There is a process that can be used to explain how a system get ransomware infection.
This steps are- user receive an email from and fake authority usually from their boss of any
governmental and non-governmental organization. This email is consist of a URL to a SAAS
application like salesforce, zendesk and workday. Link opens as a new browser window that
directs the user to a website that is considered as landing page for exploit kit hosted as .co.cc top
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level. As this web page launched in computer it starts communication with the hostage victim.
The host of website use to request about versions of software like Java to find a vulnerable
version. As the vulnerability of the version has checked by host it tries to penetrate the system
and try to take advantage of it (Parkinson, 2017). After the penetration of vulnerable version host
pushes the malicious software down that is known as malicious.EXE file. As the malicious
binary program installed on computer it starts its execution. Different methods are used by
programmer to delete the current shadow on victim machine and create new shadow to hide in.
This task is performed by hacker to put limit on chances of recovery. Then encryption process
started by the exe file and three copies are created during the process. As whole files are
encrypted a message come out in dialogue box which is posted by author to ransom money from
clients.
Threats of Ransomware
1. This can weaponize artificial intelligence by using the neural network of Artificial system
to bypass the current security and firewalls to perform cyber attack with high
effectiveness,
2. This ransomware also can be used to target healthcare sector and related industry to
create huge impact.
3. This malicious Ransomware can cause a lot cost to economy of country by attacking
different small medium organizations.
4. This will be huge problem for organization to keep the data and information of customer
safe and private. This will be a big trouble for companies like Itech.
5. Most of the user around the world using the windows system so no longer their system
will not be safe of longer time.
CONCLUSION
This report is concluding brief of ransomware attacks and its impacts on society.
Ransomware and malicious software has been studied to provide brief information of these cyber
attacks. The recent cyber attacks has been studied in which ransomware were used in attack.
Working mechanism of ransomware is analysed to understand how it infects the system of a
computer or a network. Different threats of ransomware has been analysed in the study.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bhardwaj, A., 2017. Ransomware: A rising threat of new age digital extortion. In Online
Banking Security Measures and Data Protection (pp. 189-221). IGI Global.
Brewer, R., 2016. Ransomware attacks: detection, prevention and cure. Network Security.
2016(9). pp.5-9.
Laszka, A., Farhang, S. and Grossklags, J., 2017, October. On the economics of ransomware.
In International Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security (pp. 397-417).
Springer, Cham.
Mohurle, S. and Patil, M., 2017. A brief study of wannacry threat: Ransomware attack
2017. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science. 8(5).
Moore, C., 2016, August. Detecting ransomware with honeypot techniques. In 2016
Cybersecurity and Cyberforensics Conference (CCC) (pp. 77-81). IEEE.
Parkinson, S., 2017. Use of access control to minimise ransomware impact. Network Security.
2017(7). pp.5-8.
Richardson, R. and North, M. M., 2017. Ransomware: Evolution, mitigation and
prevention. International Management Review. 13(1). p.10.
Online
2017-2019 Ransomware statistics and facts, 2019 [Online]. Available
Through.<https://www.comparitech.com/antivirus/ransomware-statistics/>.
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