Consumers: the new ATM for cyber crooksThe online crooks’ weapon of choice: crypto-ransomware, which encrypts all the data files on a user’s machine, making them inaccessible. The cyber enemy is usIt’s a truism that the biggest threat to security isn’t increasingly sophisticated cyber criminals, data-hungry corporations or even espionage-happy nation states; it’s the people who get duped into clicking random links or opening rogue files. “I think consumers should be putting more pressure on their elected officials to fund criminal investigation programs that more aggressively track down cyber criminals domestically and abroad,” Braun says. As we conduct more of our lives online, we’re being asked to become increasingly savvy about computer security. Last year, the criminals behind the CryptoWall3 malware cost victims more than $325m, according to estimates from the Cyber Threat Alliance; 2016’s haul is expected to be significantly higher.

Source: The Guardian August 08, 2016 19:07 UTC