How Ransomware Became a Billion-Dollar Nightmare for Businesses
In recent months, a proliferation of ransomware attacks has affected everyone from personal-computer and smart-phone owners to hospitals and police departments, reports The Atlantic.Reporter Adam Chandler explains the attack like this: “A virus arrives and encrypts a company’s data; then a message appears demanding a fee of hundreds or thousands of dollars. If the ransom is paid in time, the information is restored.” In this crime, it’s ndividuals and businesses, not retailers and banks, are the ones footing the bill for data breaches.
The FBI says ransomware attacks cost their victims a total of $209 million in the first three months of 2016, up from $24 million in all of 2015. And the real number could be much higher if unreported attacks are considered.
