Ransomware is on the Rise, Especially in Europe

The recently published Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIRv15) contains a section on ransomware. Ransomware is a type of malware that is designed to render a computer or its files unusable until the computer user pays the demanded amount of money to the attacker. It often masquerades as an official-looking warning from a well-known law enforcement agency, such as the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or the Metropolitan Police Service of London. Some examples are provided in Figure 1.

Ransomware has emerged as a relatively prevalent threat primarily in Europe. With the exception of New Zealand, all the locations where ransomware families made it onto the top ten list of threats in the second quarter of 2013 were in Europe; these locations include Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.  Read more.