Cybercrime Report: Analyzing Ransomware Attacks and Prevention

This report examines the escalating threat of ransomware attacks on organizations worldwide, detailing the various versions of the malware, the targeted sectors (healthcare, banking, etc.), and the global impact, particularly in the USA, UK, and India. It discusses the financial costs incurred by affected companies, the measures being taken to resolve and prevent attacks, such as adopting cloud-based email security solutions like Mimecast, and the enactment of state regulations to enforce technological standards. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for continuous innovation in technology to combat evolving cyber threats and protect organizational data, highlighting the importance of securing email systems to prevent ransomware infiltration.

Ransomware Attacks
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Executive summary
Ransomware attacker is one of the biggest threats to organizations worldwide. It has different
versions which are difficult to detect and manage. It affects organizations by preventing users
from accessing them unless ransoms are paid to the hacker. Main targets are banks, healthcare
facilities and other big organizations. This is a cybercrime involving all countries across the
globe but companies affected greatly are from USA, UK and India. Organizations are going
cloud based solutions to manage emails in order to avoid attacks. State governments are taking
extra measures by enacting rules that provide basic technological standards to be used or
measures to take when attacked.
Introduction
Ransomware is one of the malicious software which works by publishing or blocking
required data access unless some ransom is paid to its owners. Over the last few years,
Ransomware attacks has been one of the recent waves in business industry. It has been a threat to
organizations as it attacks business information systems and devices such as Personal
Computers. There are different versions of the malware ranging from simple to complex versions
(O'dowd, 2017). With simple versions, systems users have been able to reverse its effect and
unlock the devices. Contrary, advanced Ransomware attacks makes use of a technique known as
crypto viral extortion which encrypts all files from the affected devices making them
inaccessible.
Parties involved
The main target by Ransomware are healthcare organizations, banks among other large
firms. There are different types of Ransomware attacks depending on the nature of the effect an

organization faces once attacked. In this regard, it is important for different agencies to come
together to be able to fight cybercrime (Richardson & North, 2017). Advancement in technology
makes it difficult to prevent Ransomware attacks but more efforts should be focused on
Technological innovation and state rules. Those affected mostly are; Microsoft Edge users, those
using Apple Televisions and devices connected to Internet of Things (IoT).
Countries affected and cost Incurred
Out of all incidents, USA companies attacked by Ransomware, 45% paid huge amount of
money to gain back access to their files. Despite paying the amount, some organizations did not
get their files back. Organizations that have paid for ransom at least once to have their files have
had repeated attacks with a rate of 73% (Khan & Latiful Hoque, 2016). Though there have been
varying opinions on desirable options to take once attacked by Ransomware, Department of
Homeland security (DHS) discourages such payments because it exposes business operational
model to attackers. Most of the payments have been noted to be in USA. The average amount
that USA companies have paid to ransoms is estimated to be $57,088 when compared to $49,060
global average. Besides, the business operational costs including total work-loss and time that
organizations have been spending to responding is more than $900,000. It has been estimated
that in a single year, organizations have been paying more than $ 1billion to Ransomware. In
USA, information system security experts have been spending an average of 44 hours to respond
to infections. The root cause of the attackers by Ransomware, 53% of the infected companies
had their blame on legacy antivirus protection by not taking necessary actions. A research
showed that, out of ten companies infected by Ransomware, 7 have done replacement of legacy
AV antivirus protection with aim of preventing prospective attacks. Already attacked companies
have expressed confident in being able to prevent all future attacks. Apart from USA, other

countries from different parts of the world such as India, Britain and United Kingdom (UK) have
been affected by Ransomware attacks. UK businesses have been attacked by Ransomware and its
attacker has been found to be more predominant with roughly about 38 new attacks being
reported each day. O'dowd (2017) argues that number of Ransomware attack might have reduced
but their actions have proved to be more disastrous than ever.
Measures to resolve Ransomware
To prevent attacks, organizations are opting for Mimecast which is a solution to secure
emails in order to prevent future attacks (Kharraz, Robertson, Balzarotti, Bilge & Kirda, 2015). It
is SaaS-based subscription which helps organizations secure and manage organization’s mails.
Through use of Mimecast, it is possible for an organization to centralize its operations and
management as it eliminates requirements of deploying and managing several solutions from
different vendors. Similarly, authorities have had its contributions in eliminating Ransomware.
State governments have been enacting rules and regulations to prevent organizations from
cybercrime activities such as Ransomware. There has been efforts by governments to come up
with standards that an organization must meet to be allowed to run on some technologies.
Conclusion
The wave of Ransomware attacks have been on increase and this prompts need for some
actions. These actions should be aimed to prevent attacks from Ransomware. In this regard, it
would be important to come up with new technology which would help organization secure their
operational data. Ransomware attacker makes its way into the system through mails which are
sent from unknown destination. Once user opens the message or a file, Ransomware runs file

encryption function which engulfs a file and request for a key in order to access them. With these
measures, organizations would be able to save ransoms costs used to pay hackers.
References
Khan, S. I., & Latiful Hoque, A. S. M. (2016). Digital Health Data: A Comprehensive Review of
Privacy and Security Risks and Some Recommendations. Computer Science Journal of
Moldova, 24(2). http://www.math.md/files/csjm/v24-n2/v24-n2-(pp273-292).pdf
Kharraz, A., Robertson, W., Balzarotti, D., Bilge, L., & Kirda, E. (2015). Cutting the Gordian
knot: A look under the hood of ransomware attacks. In International Conference on
Detection of Intrusions and Malware, and Vulnerability Assessment (pp. 3-24). Springer,
Cham. https://seclab.ccs.neu.edu/static/publications/dimva2015ransomware.pdf
O'dowd, A. (2017). Major global cyber-attack hits NHS and delays treatment. BMJ: British
Medical Journal (Online), 357.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ba0e/d5568417340da6e3fb21790a25afa79e5ced.pdf
Richardson, R., & North, M. (2017). Ransomware: Evolution, mitigation and prevention.
International Management Review, 13(1), 10-21.
http://scholarspress.us/journals/IMR/pdf/IMR-1-2017.%20pdf/IMR-v13n1art2.pdf