According to the cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike, there were more than 40,000 cyber intrusions in just the first half of 2020 alone. What were the hackers looking to accomplish with the cyber intrusions? Since 63 percent of incidents CrowdStrike investigated in 2020 were financially motivated, most of them were probably after cold, hard cash.
The fact is, today’s malicious actor and eCriminal is a professional. It’s someone that is literally doing this to line their pockets. And, while they’re committing crimes and behaving in ways that can seriously damage an organization or its reputation, you can almost understand why they’re doing it. It pays well.
What’s worse – they’re finding new ways to make a buck.
Much like anyone that might see their livelihood threatened by new technologies, eCriminals are constantly improving, evolving, and enhancing their tools to evade security applications. They’re building new features and capabilities into their existing tools to make them more effective and – in some cases – more profitable. And they’re even finding ways to monetize familiar attack tools and vectors.
To learn more about some of the ways in which today’s eCriminal is using ransomware and DDoS attacks to extort money for public sector organizations, we invited two cybersecurity experts to sit down with us for a new GovCyberHub podcast we’re calling the “Cyber Extortion Symposium.”
Joining us for the small but potent panel of experts was:
- Josh Burgess, a technical lead and threat intelligence advisor at global cybersecurity juggernaut, CrowdStrike.
- Richard Hummel, the manager of the Threat Intelligence Team at NETSCOUT and an expert in DDoS.
During the discussion, GovCyberHub Executive Editor, Ryan Schradin, asked these experts about the tools that are being leveraged to extort money from government organizations, why 2020 was a particularly bad year for cybercrime, and what government organizations can and should be doing to protect themselves from extortion attempts.
Click the “PLAY” button below to listen to the Cyber Extortion Symposium:
For additional information about the current DDoS threat facing organizations, click HERE to download a complimentary copy of the NETSCOUT Global Threat Report.
For even more insights from CrowdStrike, click HERE to download a complimentary copy of the CrowdStrike Services Cyber Front Lines Report.
