"Government Ransomware Gangs Are Doing Their Homework Before Encrypting Corporate Data"
According to Matt Travis, deputy director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), ransomware gangs are doing much more than just infiltrating networks and stealing data. The criminal hackers are also secretively looking around networks to find financial data, such as balance sheets, to gain intelligence on how much of a ransom they can demand from a targeted business. The longer cybercriminals go undetected on a network, the more power they gain. Therefore, companies must take steps to reduce hackers' dwell time. This article continues to discuss criminal hackers' performance of reconnaissance activities before ransomware delivery, recent attacks by known ransomware gangs, and a common misconception with ransomware.