Basic hygiene security hygiene pretty much removes ransomware as a threat.
It does not. The problem is, as long as there are people employed in a company, there will be people being too trustful and executing malware, not to mention AI agents. And even if you'd assume people and AI agents were perfect, there's all the auto updaters these days that regularly get compromised because they are such juicy targets.
And no, backups aren't the solution either, they only limit the scope of lost data.
In the end the flaw is fundamental to all major desktop OS'es - neither Windows, Linux nor macOS meaningfully limit the access scope of code running natively on the filesystem. Everything in the user's home directory and all mounted network shares where the user has write permissions bar a few specially protected files/folders is fair game for any malware achieving local code execution.
Not applicable everywhere, but I think it's applicable most places.
My favorite is the Gordon-Loeb model[0], but there are others that are simpler and some that are more complex. Almost none that imply the budget should naively grow in lockstep with prevelence linearly.
I think TFA doesnt really mean to imply that it should, merely that there is a likley mismatch.
Cybersecurity is not about stopping issues but about compliance and liability. Attend RSA once, and you will see it yourself.
The technology is there and it is used to track the average citizens every move. But when it comes to rich people then the money goes and comes without control (and without taxation).
Cryptocurrencies are a great solution to enable criminal activity. Their only use and highly appreciated by terrorists, criminals and dictatorial governments around the world.
So yeah, I'm surprised its only 3x, and not even more.
A good abliterated local LLM is great at finding dumb exploits and writing ransomware code. And the cybersec professionals? Yeah, theyre pivoting elsewhere and gone.
CoastalCoder•2h ago
Is there some reason to believe that this isn't the best approach? And if not, then any theories as to why it hasn't been enacted?
ArcHound•2h ago
Another issue is that not paying up and risking restore from underfunded ops dept. might be more expensive than paying up AND making a selected executive look bad. And we can't have that, can we.
finghin•1h ago
TeMPOraL•1h ago
wongarsu•1h ago
entuno•1h ago
So, remember how you illegally paid us a ransom a few months ago? Unless you want to go to prison, then you better...
We're already seeing this against companies who pay ransoms and fail to report the breaches when they're legally required to - but it would be much worse if it's against individuals who are criminally liable.
cucumber3732842•2h ago
entuno•1h ago
Getting to a world where no one pays ransoms and the ransomware groups give up and go away would be the ideal, and we'd all love to get there. But outlawing paying ransoms basically sacrificing everyone who gets ransomwared in the meantime until we get to that state for the greater good.
And where companies get hit, they'll try hard to find ways around that, because the alternative may well be shutting down the business. But if something like a hospital gets hit, are governments really going to be able to stand behind the "you can't pay a ransom" policy when that could directly lead to deaths?
Tangurena2•1h ago
Many ransoms are far more than the victim can actually pay. Not all ransom payments result in a decryption key that actually works.
Notes:
0 - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/officials-vir...