The US Department of Homeland Security and the Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre have published a joint statement on the surge in ransomware attacks.

"Infections can be devastating to an individual or organization, and recovery can be a difficult process that may require the services of a reputable data recovery specialist," the two governments said in the alert. "Paying the ransom does not guarantee the encrypted files will be released. It only guarantees that the malicious actors receive the victim's money, and in some cases, their banking information."

They noted that recently the hackers are targeting health care facilities. MedStar, the U.S. capital region's largest healthcare provider was attacked and some of its computers were locked down with a ransom note demanding $18,500.

"The recent increase in ransomware attacks is being driven by a proliferation in ransomware toolkits,” said John Gunn, VP of communications at VASCO Data Security, in an email. “Anyone can buy the tools to conduct ransomware attacks for as little as $100 on the dark web. It’s a numbers game—more attackers equals more victims.”

Brian Laing, VP of products and development at Lastline, said: “Getting hit with ransomware is not as simple as dealing with machines being down for some length of time, because they'll be restored ultimately. Nor is it as simple as this years' product designs or other company and patient or customer data being leaked. If an organization does not have backups of the files, they are down completely.”

Gunn reminds us that attacks are only successful when someone clicks on a malicious link....“People have to stop clicking on links in malicious emails—they didn’t just win the lottery, they don’t have a huge refund coming, and a beautiful foreign lady does not want to date them."

Source: InfoSecurity