Understanding Cyber Extortion and Ways to Avoid It

Posted on: Mar 31, 2023 | 3 mins | Written by: HDFC ERGO Team

Understanding Cyber Extortion and Ways to Avoid It

We all use the internet for a myriad of day-to-day activities, right from social media to banking to booking. The list is endless. During these activities, a lot of personal and critical data is used. And this is where the risk arises. There has been an uptick in the number of cybercrimes, such as cyber extortion, around the globe over the past few years. To keep yourself and your loved ones safe from becoming victims, a cyber security policy is essential. Here is all that you need to know about cyber extortion.

Understanding cyber extortion?

If you are wondering what is cyber extortion, it is a form of cybercrime. In this, an attacker or a group of attackers gather personal and financial information about you. Using the information at hand, they threaten different consequences if you do not pay the ransom money.

There has been a considerable increase in the number of organisations that save the personal or financial data of individuals over the past few years. And there is a direct correlation between this to the increase in the number of cybercrimes as well. There have been a few instances, where attackers have not spared even the largest of organisations, bringing entire businesses to a halt in some cases.

Attackers rely on the fact that a lot of the information available online is of high value. And if they were to threaten to expose or destroy the information, it is more likely that a person might succumb to fear and give in to the extortion.

Usually, the amount demanded as a part of extortion is the black market value of the information related to you. Should you refuse to pay or cooperate with the attackers, they will most likely sell the data on the black market.

Another important aspect to understand about cyber extortion is that the attackers do not target an individual or an organisation. They normally attack a lot of people and depend on some of them being afraid and giving in to extortion.

Understanding the different types of cyber extortion?

The basis of cyber extortion is that the attackers have crucial information. And this information can be gathered using a myriad of ways, right from fishing to scams to infecting different websites. However, the attackers don’t always need to initiate an attack. They can even use Caas or cybercrime as a service. Now that we know what is cyber extortion, up next is understanding the different types of cyber extortion. Following are some of the most common types of extortions.

1. Blackmailing:

To obtain Personally Identifiable Information (PII) about your clients or intellectual property, the attacker breaches into your network. Should you refuse to pay a ransom, the attacker threatens to disclose the information.

Your company's reputation is at risk from cyber blackmail. And even worse, having your clients' private information made public can be disastrous. To safeguard your company, you might have to accede to the attackers' demands.

Make sure the attackers have your data before paying the ransom. In some circumstances, they might deceive you into thinking that they have your data by tools such as utilising social engineering.

2. Ransomware:

It is one of the most widely known cyberattacks, where the attackers get into your network, infect it, encrypt all the files that they have access to and finally block you from your system. In other words, they take complete access to your system and leave you out.

The attack can be in various forms, such as an infected attachment, downloadable links, advertisements, and so on. Once you click on any of these, the system gets infected. And usually, the encrypted files have a message about the ransom money. Only after paying the ransom money, will the attackers provide you with the decryption key.

Ransomware attacks can be particularly challenging since there is a chance that some or all the files can get deleted. Also, there is no assurance that the attackers will provide you with a decryption key once you complete the payment. And in some cases, they might find this as a beginning to more attacks. Such occurrences increase the vitality of having a cyber security policy.

3. DDos:

DDoS, or distributed denial of service attacks, is another popular tool used by attackers. In such attacks, a website is swamped with bots which can make the response times slow and eventually result in the servers being overwhelmed before shutting down.

It is becoming a popular mode of attack since a lot of businesses now rely on their websites to generate orders or engage their customers. And the attackers rely on the fact that businesses will pay the ransom money to have their websites up and running.

In some cases, the attackers might use the attack as a scare technique. However, it is crucial that you verify whether your website or services are down. If they aren’t, you should not budge to pay a ransom.

Steps to prevent cyber extortion:

To prevent cyber extortion, there are a few measures that you can depend on. Buying a cyber security policy along with the following can be a robust approach.

1. Step 1: Strong password requirement:

Though it may seem banal, strong passwords are one of the easiest ways of preventing attacks. A lot of software comes with default usernames and passwords. It is essential that you change them at the earliest and set stronger passwords, which can be difficult to break.

2. Step 2: Regularly patching the system:

A lot of cyberattacks exploit vulnerabilities in the system. Ensure that you inspect your network for any such vulnerabilities on a regular basis and patch it with updates. You can even introduce a patch management system to keep all the systems updated with patches.

3. Step 3: Backing up the data:

Losing all the data to such attacks can be the worst possible outcome. For that and many other reasons, keeping back of all the data is essential. You can back up all or selective data, which can prevent you from a lot of headaches during a cyberattack.

4. Step 4: Tightening the security:

You can either set up a strong security team internally or take the help of service providers to strengthen the systems. By taking a balanced approach between being reactive and proactive, you can enhance the security of the system. While reactive can only happen after certain flaws are identified, proactive measures will ensure that your systems are ahead of the attackers.

Also Read: 9 Rules to Follow to Keep Your Password Secure

Paying utmost importance to network security

Though there are a few measures to curb the attacks, there is no way to stop them completely. And with even more systems going online, the attacks will only increase in their dimension. By increasing the number of attacks, they essentially increase the chances of getting rewards. If you are wondering what to do about cyber extortion, strengthening network security is one of the crucial elements.

Conclusion

Cyber extortion is a growing concern among organisations and businesses. Above are some of the measures which can strengthen the security of your system and reduce the chances of cyberattacks. Combining them with a cyber security policy is one of the smartest ways to approach the menace.

Disclaimer: The above information is for illustrative purpose only. For more details, please refer to policy wordings and prospectus before concluding the sales.

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