The latest in a string of ransomware attacks may be on course to become the "most destructive ... campaign that we've seen so far," writes cybersecurity expert Dmitri Alperovitch. He explained that the Friday strike against software provider Kaseya, whose customers have an untold number of clients themselves, means there could be a "huge number of victims all over the world" and "entire networks encrypted" with "no way to decrypt today without paying millions per network of any significant size" to the perpetrators, who are believed to be affiliated with cyber criminal gang REvil.
Matt Tait, a senior cybersecurity fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin, said that while the fallout is "relatively small" so far, strategically speaking it may be more significant than previous, attention-grabbing attacks on Colonial Pipeline and Solar Winds.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
July 6 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include paying for school lunch by enlisting, and the banality of evil
-
5 biting editorial cartoons about 'Alligator Alcatraz'Cartoons Artists take on dangerous green things, historical precedent, and more
-
A journey into the deep past on beautiful ArranThe Week Recommends New Unesco Global Geopark played a 'key role' in the birth of modern geological science
-
Combs convicted on 2 of 5 charges, denied bailSpeed Read Sean 'Diddy' Combs was acquitted of the more serious charges of racketeering and sex trafficking
-
Sniper kills 2 Idaho firefighters in ambushSpeed Read A man started a wildfire, then fired a rifle at first responders when they arrived
-
Weinstein convicted of sex crime in retrialSpeed Read The New York jury delivered a mixed and partial verdict at the disgraced Hollywood producer's retrial
-
'King of the Hill' actor shot dead outside homespeed read Jonathan Joss was fatally shot by a neighbor who was 'yelling violent homophobic slurs,' says his husband
-
DOJ, Boulder police outline attacker's confessionspeed read Mohamed Sabry Soliman planned the attack for a year and 'wanted them all to die'
-
Assailant burns Jewish pedestrians in Boulderspeed read Eight people from the Jewish group were hospitalized after a man threw Molotov cocktails in a 'targeted act of violence'
-
Driver rams van into crowd at Liverpool FC paradespeed read 27 people were hospitalized following the attack
-
2 Israel Embassy staff shot dead at DC Jewish museumspeed read The suspected gunman chanted 'free, free Palestine'
