FEATURE : CYBERSECURITY

We asked Vicky Ray , Director – UNIT 42 Cyber Consulting and Threat Intelligence , Asia Pacific and Japan , Palo Alto Networks about the extent of this emerging risk .

With ransomware attacks not showing any signs of slowing down , how does the ‘ as-a-service ’ model on social media further amplify the issue ?

Along with perfecting their malware and building up their technical support operations , Ransomwareas-a-Service ( RaaS ) groups have also been implementing marketing strategies using social media – both to publish their victims ’ information or to recruit more affiliates . many channels where they hack into to steal identities for scams and to commit frauds . It is also a platform to share the incident or contact journalists . This will likely gain the attention of potential new affiliates , to carry out their attacks . For wannabe cyber extortionists , it becomes much easier for them to find these tools and services .

Do novice threat actors who deploy such attacks really pose a threat to businesses and individuals ?

Today , social media sites are one of the many channels bad actors use to share stolen data . Roughly 4.9 billion people use some form of social media today . This is more than 60 % of the world ’ s population . Its wide usage has made it one of the

Ransomware-as-a-Service ( RaaS ) aims to make ransomware attacks simpler for those that only have little technical and programming skills , allowing them to participate in launching these attacks and earn financial gain . With this tactic , novice threat actors can

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