Paying ransom to hackers ‘makes you a target’

AS CYBER attacks grow, meeting hackers’ demands is no guarantee you won’t be hit again, says global cybersecurity firm McAfee.

It says that giving in to hackers’ demands silently and not alerting cyber security authorities will only make you a preferred future target.

Today, on average, enterprises face 244 new cyber threats a minute worldwide.

“We’ve seen an 80% increase in new ransomware samples since the beginning of last year. The attacks have been a wake-up call, forcing executives to question whether they should pay a ransom,” said Anand Ramamoorthy, managing director McAfee South Asia.

“Meeting hackers’ demands will not necessarily guarantee their compliance. In many cases, the likelihood of receiving decryption keys is almost nil. What is certain, however, is that victims who pay will be recognised as willing to pay, making them a preferred target,” Ramamoorthy stressed.

Ten years ago, McAfee Labs used to see 25 threats a day. Today, he said, it sees about 500 000 daily.

Globally, McAfee cybersecurity solutions protect more than a quarter of a billion endpoints across every category of device, serve nearly two-thirds of the world’s 2 000 largest companies and defend more than 200 million users each day.

With its largest research and development facility in Bengaluru, which employs more than 1000 engineers, the US-based McAfee’s revenues are growing in double digits in India. Over the next couple of years, the country is expected to become one of its top markets.

“India is one of the fastest-growing markets for McAfee. In India the company has partnered with about 49% of ET 500 firms and aims to cover 60%,” said Ramamoorthy.

Additionally, apart from having collaborated with leading original equipment manufacturers like LG and Samsung, McAfee is now also associated with leading consumer electronics company Micromax.

McAfee, he said, has solutions that unite data and actions across multiple applications from different vendors, as well as help internally developed applications to deal with threats that are becoming more complex, targeted and customised.

“In 2016, ‘Locky’ ransomware infected millions of users worldwide, primarily through malicious attachments in spam e-mails. To become more agile, the malware changed what extension is appended to encrypted files and used the ‘.locky’, ‘.zepto’, and ‘.odin’ extensions across unique instances,” said Ramamoorthy.

“This year ransomware is back on the scene – equipped with two variants that leverage either the ‘.Diablo6’ or ‘.Lukitus’ extension for encrypting files and they are demanding a ransom of .49 Bitcoins (nearly $1 900 or R26 000) for the decryption key to unlock the infected files,” the executive added.

Ransomware is bringing Bitcoin into popular culture and raising awareness of crypto currencies.

As the public’s ability to acquire digital currencies other than Bitcoin becomes easier, said the executive, cybercriminals will look to such options not only to fund malicious activities but to also maintain anonymity.

According to Ramamoorthy, security considerations need to be inherent by design and not a bolt-on later.

“The need of the hour is to make cybersecurity an unavoidable pattern in the country’s IT infrastructure,” he said, adding that McAfee had been working with the government as a strategic knowledge partner in various capacities. – IANS