Harrisburg University Cybersecurity and Information Assurance lecturer Bruce Young joined WGAL and abc27 news to discuss increasing and more crippling ransomware attacks that are disrupting businesses and more.
A pipeline company, Colonial Pipeline, which transports fuel through 10 states, recently said it had to halt all pipeline operations to deal with a ransomware attack, according to WGAL.
The attack even caused gas prices to trickle higher, abc27 said.
“Hopefully, this will be one of those events that cause action to occur, and organizations realize that they have to invest in implementing good cybersecurity practices,” Young told abc27.
“Most attacks, they don’t exfiltrate the data because that starts to leave a trail that they could be tracked,” Young told WGAL. “So, unless you pay the ransom and get the key – there’s a decryption key to decrypt the data to get your data back. They’ll put time frames on it, where if you pay within the next 24 hours it’s $1 million. If you wait until 72 hours or three days, it goes up to $5 million.”
To view the WGAL story, click here. The abc27 story can be found at this link.
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