How often do you receive emails that claim your primary credit card is no longer valid unless you “click here”? How often do get a notice from your bank requiring some action — then you see the email is not really from the bank? Those are some of the simplest hacker tricks.

The rise of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) has further lowered barriers for attackers, enabling even low-skilled hackers to launch sophisticated campaigns. Criminals can pay the RaaS providers to create the means for infiltration that the criminal can then use with essentially no knowledge of how it works.

These attacks use complex encrypt of sensitive business data, typically making it near impossible to gain access. In 2024, ransomware accounted for nearly 25% of all cyber incidents, with some larger organizations paying up to $75 million in ransom. Beyond the ransom payments, businesses face extensive recovery costs, sometimes regulatory fines, and, of course, reputational damage.

A worrying trend is dual extortion, where attackers exfiltrate sensitive data before encrypting it, threatening to make your data publicly available. Victims then find they must pay for decryption, not only to regain access to data but also to prevent public exposure of the stolen information.  Read On: