It would be comforting to know that our emergency services were secure from cyberattack, but it would also be naive. A game-changer in the cybercrime business has been ransomware. Simply defined, ransomware is a category of malicious software (“malware”) that encrypts or locks data and holds it hostage until the user pays a ransom to unlock it.
Ransomware attacks are increasing at an alarming rate — a fact that all too many businesses have learned the hard way. Cyber criminals have become emboldened in the age of anonymous crypto-currency such as Bitcoin. On March 7, I attended the Brandon Chamber of Commerce’s Synergy Luncheon, where the guest speaker was FBI Special Agent AJ Gilman. Gilman has been working in cybersecurity for the past 18 years. He stated that he expects that ransomware attacks will continue to rise in 2017.
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Recent evidence states that the network infrastructures of our police departments and hospitals are ill-prepared for these attacks. A few recent examples in the last year include:
- March 2016: Ransomware-encrypted medical data was spread across three hospitals in Southern California. Hackers demanded $17,000 for the encryption key. The LA Times article stated that they did not pay the ransom, but some operations were disrupted due to computer downtime during the attack.
- August 2016: A computer server at the Susan M. Hughes Surgery Center in New Jersey and Philadelphia was attacked and had ransomware installed.
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David Thornton is an OpsLens Contributor and retired law enforcement officer.
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