NCSC CEO Lindy Cameron has warned UK businesses that ransomware “is the most immediate cyber threat” they face.
During a speech at Chatham House’s cyber conference, Cameron made the remarks, marking one year since she was appointed head of the UK government agency. She cited numerous examples of the real-world damage caused by ransomware attacks in the past year. This includes the attack on Ireland’s Health Service Executive, which led to “months of disrupted appointments and services” and the disruption to vital services at Hackney Borough Council in the UK due to its IT systems being forced offline for months. In addition, she highlighted the notorious attack on Colonial Pipeline in the US, leading to significant fuel shortages across the East Coast.
These examples show why ransomware is the most immediate threat to UK businesses and most other organizations, “from FTSE 100 companies to schools; from national infrastructure to local councils.”
It is the latest in several warnings made by Cameron about the recent threat of ransomware.
Cameron said many organizations “have no incident response plans, or ever test their cyber defenses.”
This needs to change, with the NCSC expecting ransomware attacks to continue growing for the foreseeable future. This issue is exacerbated by increasingly sophisticated methods being employed by some groups, such as multi-extortion attacks, which in addition to closing down an organization’s systems and data, the attackers threaten to publish exfiltrated data on the dark web.
Unfortunately, “we expect ransomware will continue to be an attractive route for criminals as long as organizations remain vulnerable and continue to pay,” continued Cameron, who warned that “paying ransoms emboldens these criminal groups – and it also does not guarantee your data will be returned intact, or indeed returned at all.”
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