Ransomware & the US Public Sector Whitepaper

Ransomware, which the US Department of Justice has defined as any “form of malware that targets your critical data and systems for the purpose of extortion,” has dominated headlines in 2019, but the mode of attack is far from new.

Thirty years ago in 1989, the first ransomware attack called PC Cyborg (more commonly known as the AIDS Trojan), targeted AIDS researchers in ninety different countries, using infected floppy disks to render their computer systems useless until they paid a ransom. The state of the ransomware threat has come a long way since those floppy disk beginnings.

The era of modern ransomware began in 2013 with an attack on Massachusetts’ Swansea Police Department. Since then, ransomware has continued to morph and metastasize, catching increasing numbers of unsuspecting users in its encryption-based snares.