Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Moving from RansomWare to LeakWare

One of the trends I have observed on the Cyber Security threat landscape is the movement from "Ransonware" like CyrptoLocker, TeslaCrypt and CryptoWall to a new category of malware I am calling "LeakWare." This is a distinct category of malware that needs its own category, defenses and and special attention.

Simply defined, we can expect LeakWare will hold a user or company's data for ransom (maybe, probably) and if the ransom is not paid the data will then be leaked to the world via sites like pastebin, wikileaks, and others. The aim here is to up the ante beyond merely data loss to data exposure. Imagine the Sony-like impact of this potentially life/business-ending exposure. This will merit new and special attention to defense and prevention further driving the market for new and innovative technologies to guard against this and previously-seen  similar threats.

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