Ransomware

Predictions 2020: Ransomware comes to a town near you

December 17, 2019By 5 CommentsReading time: 5 Minutes

Ransomware attacks on small cities, towns and school districts will accelerate through 2020.

Leading indicators

Ransomware attacks on large municipalities like New York and Baltimore have raised public consciousness of cyber risks to public services.  Attacks on public services in smaller municipalities and counties are increasing.

Trends

While high profile Ransomware attacks on large municipalities have captured headlines, with Baltimore the most damaging in 2019, attacks on smaller municipalities and essential services are occurring as well.  Larger cities will take the lesson of Baltimore and invest to prevent complete take downs of municipal services, but smaller cities, counties and towns will not have the resources or expertise to defend themselves against ransomware attacks.  Cybercriminals like other criminals are opportunists and will go after the most vulnerable local governments.  Consider in the last two years, there have been dozens of 911 emergency services ransomware attacks in small towns and counties as well as some in larger municipalities.  We can expect increases in ransomware attacks on local governments and school districts, with attacks on smaller cities, counties and towns dominating.

Recommendation

Since the target list of vulnerable public services is so large and smaller municipalities and other small local government entities do not have the resources to combat the threat of ransomware, states, with federal assistance, should step up to the plate to set the standards, assess readiness, and assist local governments in closing vulnerabilities to public services and critical infrastructure.

French Caldwell

French has been a naval officer and nuclear submariner, a diplomatic liaison to NATO for a congressional commission, a consultant with clients that included the Central Intelligence Agency and Department of Defense, a Gartner Fellow and analyst, and an executive on the leadership team at a Silicon Valley tech company. He has published a book and over 400 articles — most of those through Gartner, but also in the Financial Times, several newspapers and magazines, academic journals, and national security publications. French's passions include strategy, risk management and compliance, disruptive technology and public policy, sailing, hiking and backpacking, and his family.

Resources

Workiva
Cybersecurity

Why Are Religious Organizations Under Cyber Attack? – Part 2

Disclosure

The views and opinions in this analysis are my own and do not represent positions or opinions of The Analyst Syndicate. Read more on the Disclosure Policy.

5 Comments

  1. Why Are Religious Organizations Under Cyber Attack? – Part 2
    July 15, 2020

    […] Ransomware/Doxware: Are terms to describe a cyber attack that encrypts computer data or files and then demands payment. Doxware copies confidential, personal, privileged or sensitive data, thereby allowing attacker’s to also publicly expose this information if payment is ignored. […]

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