Inside the Ransomware Economy: The Industries and Businesses at Risk with Spence Hutchinson

About the Episode

Ransomware remains one of the most pervasive cybersecurity threats faced by organizations today. What’s more, the ransomware landscape has evolved, with cybercriminals shifting from opportunistic attacks to targeted, sophisticated campaigns against specific industries.

Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) has also emerged as a prevalent model, where ransomware tools are leased out by developers to other criminals, spreading the threat further and making it accessible to amateur threat actors.

In this episode, we sit down with Spence Hutchinson, and chat about the ransomware landscape, the cybercriminal "gig" economy, and which industries and types of businesses are most at risk of ransomware attacks.

Key takeaways from the conversation include:

• The evolution of ransomware attacks from simple smash-and-grab strategies to more sophisticated network-wide dominations
• How ransomware-as-a-service groups operate and how they infiltrate networks to gain initial access
• How the "outside in" approach helps to understand threats posed by the Dark Web
• The role that Initial Access Brokers (IABs) play in the ransomware economy and how they use the Dark Web to sell access to other cybercriminals
• Why Lockbit is one of the most impactful threats for SMBs and why it's so challenging to defend against