The total value of ransomware sales on dark web market places has rocketed from $250,000 to over $6m in just a year as demand for the file-encrypting malware grows.
Ransomware has hardly been away from the public eye this year, with global the outbreak of WannaCry making it a bringer of global chaos, while prominent ransomware families like Cerber and Locky continue to be a thorn in the side of organisation around the world.
Ransomware has become a lucrative tool for cyber criminals as it’s easy to buy if you know where to look, attacks are easy to carry out and perhaps most crucially, a large percentage of victims are willing to give into the ransom demands of criminals in order to regain access to their systems.