There have recently been a number of ransomware attacks targeted towards the legal and financial sectors, which have resulted in down time and a loss of capability.
Ransomware attacks can be devastating for organisations, and not being properly prepared can lead to a significant amount of down time and data loss which could take months to recover from.
Chris Wilson, Cyber Protect Officer for East Midlands Special Operations Unit, said: "Over the last few weeks we have seen an increase in targeted attacks against the legal and financial sectors. These sectors often hold lucrative information and attackers have realised this. "If you work in the legal sector, we highly recommend you look at hardening your systems and looking at IT systems to ensure they are not vulnerable. We urge you to be vigilant over the next few weeks, as the cyber risk is heightened in the run up to the commonwealth games as this makes the UK a likely target.
East Midlands Cyber Secure have produced an extensive list of things you can do to reduce the risks of being targeted.
Find out more on their website.
Ransomware is a malicious software that infects your computer and encrypts itself, locking the victim out until they pay a fee to unlock it and regain access, this fee will usually be requested via cryptocurrencies.
While the victims are locked out, the criminals may steal the encrypted data and personal information and resell it online or possibly edit the information.
Cybercriminals will often not commence their attack the second they gain access to your network and can sometimes remain dormant for months at a time monitoring the network traffic and gathering information about the users and the computer systems themselves so that they can launch their attack at the perfect time while also harvesting data that can be sold online.
Chris added: "We anticipate that these attacks will only increase in frequency given the current geopolitical and economic climate. We are on standby to help if you have been impacted by an attack, and you can report this to us via Action Fraud or any of the usual channels."
For more information on steps you can take to protect yourself, don't forget to visit the East Midlands Cyber Secure website.
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