When it comes to viruses and malware, ransomware is some of the worst for companies to encounter. Threatening all of your systems until you pay up, ransomware benefits only the hacker with everything from your everyday user to hospitals suffering their attacks. The latest large profile target to be hit by ransomware is the University of Calgary, who report that they basically had no other choice.
According to Linda Dalgetty, the Universities VP of Finance and Services, “ransomware attacks and the payments of ransoms are becoming increasingly common around the world”. Working with Calgary police to investigate the hack, the University ended up paying the 20,000 Canadian dollars (16,000 US dollars) that the ransomware requested to recover their data.
The university is currently in the process of evaluating the decryption keys and actually doing the decryption, with no guarantee that they even work with or can recover all of the universities data. Due to the research and sensitive nature of the data affected, the University are taking no chances when it comes to restoring their systems, reminding us that “a great deal of work is still required by IT to ensure all affected systems are operational again, and this process will take time”.
