The Business of Ransomware: Cyber Threat Briefing- Africa

Ransomware operators are portrayed in the media as predatory eagles selecting specific targets before swooping in.  They are in fact vultures.

Organizations aren’t targeted because of their sector, turnover, or profile.  They are targets of opportunistic access groups that find insufficiently protected systems.  Sectors with multiple overlapping security compliance regimes are less likely to become ransomware victims but any organisation can put the necessary controls in place. Ransomware isn’t just for criminals.  Nation state affiliated groups are using ransomware style attacks as cover for disruptive cryptographic wiper attacks.

Based on over 2 decades of threat research and conducting thousands of incident response engagements we’ll explore:

• The business model of the ransomware ecosystem
• The main players and their playbook
• How and why they attack organisations
• Cryptographic wiper attacks
• How organisations can modernise their threat detection and response to defend themselves