SUNYANI SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Ransomware is a type of malware when it gets into your computer or network it will encrypt all your data and then it will display a message on your computer screen that data has been encrypted until the victim pays something, normally they ask the victim to pay money in the form of bitcoin. 

The criminal will not release the data.

It can affect individuals or organizations, it doesn’t just occur by one person, normally there is a syndicate of criminals. 

So there is a group of criminals known as developers, they are very good software gurus, software engineering guys, so they come together to develop the ransomware exploit, the exploit is the actual malware they use to launch the attack. 

So they will develop it and normally advertise it. They give it to sales people, public relations people on the dark web. The advertisement and others don’t show on the real internet world.

There is another internet world we don’t see but it is there. You have to use specialized tools to get there. So once the exploit is developed by the ransomware developer, another group known as the affiliates will go and buy. Some of them will not have money, so they won’t buy but they will rather subscribe. After the subscription or after the affiliate has bought it, the affiliates will then package it in the form of a fake link, fake image, whatever and then they will deploy it in real life.  It can be deployed on let’s say WhatsApp.

Most times, it is deployed as a fake link, in a fake e-mail, so the e-mail will be presented as if it is coming from your Bank, relative, whatever. There are some people everything they see they will click on it, and so they will click on it. If the attacker or the affiliate targets organizations like the bank then, the entire computer system of the bank gets frozen and they will display the message on computers until somebody pays the ransom the data will not be released.

This is how the ransomware as a service model or a business looks like. It can make anyone rich overnight, because everyday, every night, an attack is going on and we get victims who get money to pay, and the victims are basically the financial institutions, health care institutions and utility institutions. .

To get an understanding, the drama troupe is coming to demonstrate it, so that we get a detail understanding of how this type of attack occurs.

Thank you. 

His Excellency congratulating one of the Visual Arts Students who painted his portraint during a working visit to SUSEC