Interpol: police and PC industry must fight ‘ransomware pandemic’

Interpol has called for police forces and the computer industry to form a “global coalition” in order to prevent a “potential ransomware pandemic”.

It follows a spate of worldwide attacks targeting companies, as well as schools, hospitals, power stations and other forms of vital infrastructure. In such attacks, hackers encrypt an organisation’s data or software so it can’t be accessed, and demand a ransom payment to release it.

One of the biggest attacks this year saw hackers disable the Colonial Pipeline, which carries fuel from Houston, Texas to the south-eastern United States. Last month the UK’S National Cyber Security Centre reported a rise in hacks targeting schools and universities.

Interpol secretary general Jürgen Stock warned that the threat of ransomware “has become too large of a threat for any entity or sector to address alone”, and fighting it “urgently demands united global action”.

Talking at Interpol’s High-level Forum on Ransomware ( www.snipca. com/38941), he said: “Despite the severity of their crimes, ransomware criminals are continuously adapting their tactics, operating free of borders and with near impunity”.

He called for crime-fighting bodies to collaborate, just as they do when investigating terrorism, human trafficking and mafia gangs.

Ransomware has become more lucrative for criminals, because they’ve switched to a ‘Ransomware-as-a-service’ strategy, in which they rent malware kits to gangs of hackers.

“Much like the pandemic it exploits, ransomware is evolving into different variants, delivering high financial profits to criminals,” Stock added.

Recent research found that in 2020 criminals made $350m in ransomware payments – a rise of 311 per cent in one year.

Western leaders suspect Russia of harbouring the world’s most active ransomware gangs, accusing its authorities of tolerating attacks as long as they target only foreign companies and institutions.