New Ransomware Group Phones Execs to Extort Payment
Researchers claim the Volcano Demon ransomware group personally phone victims to pressure them into paying
Ransomware encrypts or steals data to disrupt operations and extort victims, making backups, access controls, and incident response essential.
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Background for this topic.
Ransomware is malware used to deny access to systems or data, usually by encrypting files and demanding payment for decryption. Many operations also steal sensitive information and threaten to publish it, so an attack can create both an availability crisis and a privacy or disclosure risk. Initial access may involve phishing, stolen credentials, exposed remote services, or exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities; attackers may then move through the network before deploying the payload.
Defenses should combine vulnerability management, phishing-resistant authentication where practical, endpoint and network monitoring, and backups that are isolated from routine administrator access and regularly tested for recovery. Organizations should also limit privileges and segment critical systems to reduce the blast radius. An incident requires rapid containment, preservation of forensic evidence, restoration from known-good backups, and assessment of notification, legal, and regulatory obligations. Threat intelligence can help identify relevant criminal infrastructure or tactics, but it does not replace sound access control, patching, detection, and recovery practices.
Researchers claim the Volcano Demon ransomware group personally phone victims to pressure them into paying
A new report reveals the hidden mental health toll of ransomware attacks on victims, urging a focus on well-being alongside data and system recovery
Comparitech calculated that the average ransom demand was over $5.2m in the first six months of 2024, with 421 confirmed incidents during this period
Outsourcer Infosys McCamish Systems has revealed millions of victims were impacted by a ransomware attack last year