"If you're thinking, 'Is it just me, or did there not used to be a massive ransomware attack every two months?' You're actually right," says Oliver.
August 16, 2021

John Oliver makes ransomware an actual interesting subject, like he does with so many things. Via Mashable:

John Oliver took one of his famous deep dives into the topic on Last Week Tonight to unpack this criminal technique used by hackers involving encrypting a victim's device and forcing the owner to pay a ransom to unlock it.

"If you're thinking, 'Is it just me, or did there not used to be a massive ransomware attack every two months?' You're actually right," says Oliver. "Over the past few years, it's gone from a trickle to an absolute flood. The estimated total ransoms paid quadrupled to $350 million last year. And that is definitely an undercount, because companies often don't publicly disclose ransomware attacks, for fear of negative press or lawsuits."

Oliver begins with recent events, with a look at the ransomware attack that shut down the Colonial Pipeline and the attack that hit I.T. software company Kaseya in July that affected as many as 1,500 companies including schools and a national railway system.

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