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Ransomware: To Pay or Not to Pay Is Not the Question

By Michel Sahyoun
October 01, 2020

Ransomware has come a long way since the 1989 "AIDS Trojan." Distributed by diskette, it encrypted the file names and directories of its victims. Ransom demands have also come a long way. The AIDS Trojan attack demanded $189 for the decryption key. In 2019 ransomware demands topped $12M.

As the CrowdStrike 2020 Global Threat Report succinctly puts it: "Ransom demands grew larger. Tactics became more cutthroat." Particularly cutthroat has been the advent of encryption cum exfiltration.

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More or Less Reason to Pay?

Historically, ransomware attacks were focused on the payoff, not acquiring information. That changed in late 2019.

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