London financial sector prime target of ransomware attacks, security researchers find
By Prempal Singh
Ransomware attackers have set their sights on the United kingdoms’s capital. Security researchers have uncovered that London has been under attack from threat actors, who are specifically launching ransomware problems to target individuals and businesses.
Some of London’s top banks, law companies and other businesses were found to obtain suffered almost 10,500 ransomware strikes, Malwarebytes researchers uncovered. On top of that, the City of London, uk was found as the top ransomware target in the united kingdom, with 670% more ransomware attacks than the snooze of the UK’s top 10 vulnerable areas mixed.
Malwarebytes researchers’ analysis of London’s Square Mile, which is home to a substantial number of financial service companies and other businesses, revealed that the town was strike more times than a number of other countries, including Sweden, Malaysia and Hungary.
Malwarebytes data science analyst Nima Samadi told IBTimes UK: “When analysing the data it gave us an interesting snapshot into a growing problem facing companies. These types of nefarious threats, which essentially demand money with advertisement, are becoming a real problem for big business – encrypting company documents for ever unless the ransom is paid. This is a modern day protection racket.
“Given that only 7, 000 people reside in the City of London, but hundreds of thousands commute there every day, it is far from a great leap to assume these attacks involved compromised work systems. With over 80m square ft of office space in just particular 1 miles – this is a hugely tempting focus on for the bad folks. ”
That kicks off in august, Malwarebytes CEO Marcin Kleczynski told Organization Insider within an interview that banks had started stockpiling bitcoins, in case they were hit by a ransomware attack. “I spoken to a couple of banks and they say they have 50-100 bitcoin ready at all times in a wallet to deploy if a ransomware attack hits, ” this individual said.
Researchers were able to identify the top 10 ransomware campaigns focusing on people in the UK. The File Cryptor ransomware was found to be the most common, carefully strongly followed by File Locker room. Trojan Ransom, Cryptowall and TeslaCrypt were among the other top campaigns recognized.
UK companies are not the only sector to be targeted by ransomware writers. Hospitals across the UK have also been targeted by ransomware, but unlike banks, the NHS promises to have not paid up the hackers.
Source: ibtimes.co.uk