GEC NEWS WIREIntel Security released its McAfee Labs Threats Report: September 2016, which assesses the growing ransomware threat to the healthcare industry, surveyed the “who and how” of data loss, explaining the practical application of machine learning in cybersecurity, and details of the growth of ransomware, mobile malware, macro malware, and other threats in Q2 2016.
Following a rash of targeted ransomware attacks upon hospitals in early 2016, Intel Security investigated the attacks, the ransomware networks behind them, and the payment structures enabling cybercriminals to monetize their malicious activity. The researchers identified nearly $100,000 in payments from hospital ransomware victims to specific bitcoin accounts. While healthcare is still clearly a small proportion of the overall ransomware ‘business,’ McAfee Labs expects a growing number of new industry sectors to be targeted by the extensive networks launching such attacks.
“As targets, hospitals represent an attractive combination of relatively weak data security, complex environments, and the urgent need for access to data sources, sometimes in life or death situations,” said Vincent Weafer, Vice President for Intel Security’s McAfee Labs. “The new revelations around the scale of ransomware networks and the emerging focus on hospitals remind us that the cybercrime economy has the capacity and motivation to exploit new industry sectors.”
The survey found that retail and financial services organizations have deployed the most extensive protections against data loss, a finding McAfee Labs attributes to organizational responses to the frequency of cyber-attacks and the value of the data held by companies in these two sectors.
