Why Are Hackers Shifting to Ransomware?

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Transcript

00:00Roland, talk us through the difference between cyber espionage and ransomware, especially in a case like this.

00:05Hackers shifting from spying to locking systems and why they would do that in the first place.

00:10Actually, this is a very important question because yesterday I had an interview on Al-Arabiya Arabic

00:16and we were discussing what they are doing in England now because they are forcing all entities

00:22whenever they are under ransomware attack, not to pay their ransomware.

00:27And at the same time, they have to announce and declare to the governmental entities that we were under attack.

00:32Why everybody is going now for ransomware, talking about hackers?

00:36Because if I will hack you now and I will encrypt all your systems, all your servers, all your data,

00:42so all the system will not be functional anymore in your company or governmental entity or maybe hospitals, for example.

00:48So this is a very big issue.

00:50So that's why entities like this, and one time it happened to the U.S. pipelines.

00:56They asked for a ransom of $5 million and they had to pay it because all the U.S. pipelines were down

01:03and there was a big problem in the U.S.A.

01:06Sometimes hospitals, they are forced to pay this ransomware.

01:09So hackers, they count on the fact that lots of companies and the governmental entities and hospitals,

01:14they cannot afford to be down.

01:16They cannot afford to have all their data encrypted.

01:19So that's why they go for ransomware attack to make more money.

01:22But what they are doing now in England, when they are saying that you are not allowed to pay the ransom

01:27and you are forced to tell the governmental entities, in this way, yes, they are putting kind of restrictions

01:33on not to give all the hackers the fancy of getting paid for everything.

01:38But at the same time, let's talk about hospital.

01:40What if in a hospital all their servers and equipment and computers are down?

01:45And people might die in this hospital.

01:47So they must pay.

01:47So this is a very critical issue and ransomware attacks now are one of the worst attacks worldwide.