“Ransomware” attacks are on the rise. They’re carried out by hidden forces in the dark underbelly of the web. They target ordinary folks, people who work from home, in order to access data valued by businesses. Once accessed, the data is hijacked in some form or another, then the hackers ask for money. How do they impose their ill will? There's a threat dangled that they will spill the data to the web or sell them cheap to other dark web. Now, security researchers have uncovered that year-on-year, ransomware attacks are doubling in number. The spike in such attacks, triggered by heightened vulnerabilities created from the work-from-home mode, had become eye opener for many. TechTarget has reported that the average cyber ransom attack payment has gone up up 43% to $220,298 in the first quarter of 2021 from Q4 2020.