- Nouvelles de sécurité
- Cybercrime & Digital Threats
- Security 101: Digital Extortion in 2018
View Infographic: Digital Extortion in 2018
Digital extortion is one of the most lucrative ways cybercriminals can profit in today’s threat landscape. Many have fallen victim to this particular scheme and been bilked of their money — from ordinary users to big enterprises.
Everyone is a potential target, which is why being informed about what digital extortion is, how it’s carried out and how to protect against it is critical. This is especially relevant in 2018, where we predict that digital extortion efforts will involve other methods besides the tried and tested ransomware attack.
What is digital extortion?
Digital extortion is the act of coercing an individual or organization to pay in exchange for gaining back access to stolen cyber assets. The assets may be anything that directly ties in to the victim’s personal information, business operations, or financial interests. Examples of these include document files, database files, access to servers, etc.
How is digital extortion carried out?
Currently, the bulk of digital extortion is done with ransomware attacks. A ransomware attack involves malware that, upon infecting a user’s system, encrypts the files stored in the hard drives, thereby rendering them inaccessible. It typically compromises the personal documents that the user may have stored in those drives. In any case, the user is then asked, either through a text file or a message window, to send an amount of money to the culprit in order to have the files decrypted. Should the user pay, the act of digital extortion is deemed complete.
Given the success of ransomware campaigns, cybercriminals are likely to use other methods of digital extortion, including the following:
It should be noted that while most of these threats may seem geared toward public figures and companies, the fact remains that cybercriminals commonly carry out their attacks indiscriminately. This means that even private individuals or people who are not in the public spotlight may also become victims of digital extortion.
What safeguards can be used against digital extortion?
Users and public individuals can mitigate most digital extortion attacks by doing the following:
Companies can do the following to be secure from digital extortion attacks:
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