RANSOMWARE ATTACKS WITH REAL-WORLD CONSEQUENCES

Ransomware attacks from the past year make one thing clear: We’ve entered a perilous new era where attacks that originate in cyberspace can and will cause chaos in the physical world. Bob Violino explores how we got here and what comes next.

Ransomware groups have taken their attacks to a dangerous new level over the past year, targeting ubiquitous software used by hundreds or thousands of businesses, government agencies and critical infrastructure providers and revealing multiple vulnerabilities in the software supply chain.

The lesson throughout: One piece of software can bring down a business, even if it wasn’t the direct target of the ransomware group.

This SC Media Special Focus explores how the ransomware threat has evolved and identifies tools and techniques to help organizations strengthen their defenses. Before we go further, let’s explore some of the more devastating attacks of the past year:

SolarWinds

The attack against systems management software provider SolarWinds in late 2020 was particularly notable because it impacted thousands of organizations within the company’s supply chain, including the U.S. government. The incident centered on the company’s Orion IT performance monitoring system, which cyber criminals used to execute their attack via malicious code that created a backdoor for hackers. Because Orion has privileged access to customers’ systems, that made SolarWinds an especially attractive target. The attackers gained access to the networks, systems, and data of thousands of SolarWinds customers.