Source: The Conversation â UK â By Jan Lemnitzer, Lecturer, Department of Digitalization, Copenhagen Business School
In the past five years, ransomware attacks have evolved from rare misfortunes into common and disruptive threats. Hijacking the IT systems of organisations and forcing them to pay a ransom in order to reclaim them, cybercriminals are freely extorting millions of pounds from companies â and theyâre enjoying a remarkably low risk of arrest as they do it.
At the moment, there is no coordinated response to ransomware attacks, despite their ever-increasing prevalence and severity. Instead, statesâ intelligence services respond to cybercriminals on an ad-hoc basis, while cyber-insurance firms recommend their clients simply pay off the criminal gangs that extort them.