Continuing with our series of articles on cybersecurity issues we are going to address another of the most common dangers, and most lucrative for cybercriminals. The impact figures from ransomware can be chilling, as we can see in this article<\/a>. The average cost of ransomware attacks in 2022 is $4.54 million, with these figures taken from IBM statistics<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Something more important that we can make clear is that the danger of ransomware goes beyond a simple data hijack for profit. In the context of a globalized world that is dependent on the use of information and technology to operate, some ransomware attacks have begun to function as a political tool. As we can see in April 2022, the Costa Rican economy was paralyzed due to a ransomware attack<\/a> forcing the country to enter a state of emergency from May 8th to May 11th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most dangerous part of this situation is not that the attack was successful and was able to paralyze the country\u2019s economy, but that hours after the incident, the country\u2019s national commission for risk prevention and emergency response acknowledged not having any protocol or strategy to prevent or resolve the effects of this type of attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before we get down to business, what is ransomware? According to Wikipedia, it is defined as the following: <\/em>ransomware (coming from the terms ransom,<\/em>and ware<\/em>, abbreviation of \"software\u201d<\/a>) is a type of malicious program<\/a> that restricts a user\u2019s access to certain parts or entire files of an infected operating system and that demands a ransom in exchange for removing this restriction. Some ransomwares encrypt the operating system files, rendering the device unusable and coercing the user to pay the ransom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As we saw above, perhaps the definition is not quite complete (although it perfectly defines the term as such) and we should add data hijacking for political reasons or for no purpose other than to disrupt the normal course of a company or government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ransomware phenomenon is not something new, it has existed since the 80s. These attacks blocked access to the operating system and demanded ransom payment to unlock the use of the device. As we can see in this article<\/a> the first attacks of this type were prior to the spread of the Internet and Joseph Popp is considered to be the father of ransomware attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Joseph Popp was an American evolutionary biologist who was dedicated to the research of the AIDS virus. He developed the \"AIDS\" Trojan, and after developing it he mailed 20,000 diskettes to different countries, disguising the Trojan as an introduction of information about AIDS. After investigation he was arrested by the British authorities and confessed to having developed the Trojan so that he could donate the proceeds to the virus research. He was declared mentally unfit to stand trial and was returned to the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a few years, ransomware was less prevalent as a tool since capital tracing was relatively easy, but with the emergence of digital currencies and cryptocurrency, which are much more difficult to trace, ransomware has begun to take hold once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\nDefinition of ransomware<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Brief History<\/h2>\n\n\n\n