Over the past several years, the emergence of big-ticket, destructive ransomware attacks jolted the U.S. government into action to circumscribe the predominately Russian-based threat actors behind the scourge. At the same time, ransomware has been a critical factor driving the growth in corporate cybersecurity budgets as organizations grapple with the often-crippling threat.
Despite the policy measures and increased private sector funding to slow down the drumbeat of attacks, ransomware threats remained a top topic at this year’s RSA conference. Experts at the event underscored that Russian state-sanctioned criminal actors are not the only ransomware threat actors to fear, nor are ransomware attacks decreasing despite the intensified efforts to nip them in the bud. The same actions taken to quash ransomware activity might end up forging alliances among financially motivated threat actors to create hybrid cyber-attacks that meld social engineering with ransomware.