New Scientist - USA (2019-07-13)

13 July 2019 | New Scientist | 9

Analysis Ransomware

Cybercriminals are cashing in As extortion ransomware spreads,

organisations are paying to release their data. It is a risky move,

says Chris Stokel-Walker

RANSOMWARE attacks are on
the rise. These see individuals
and organisations denied access
to their data unless they pay the
hackers who are holding it hostage.
The latest apparent victim is the
biggest provider of forensic
services to the UK.
Eurofins Scientific in
Luxembourg was hit with a
ransomware attack in early June.
Last week, the BBC reported that
a ransom had been paid to regain
control of the data. Eurofins didn’t
respond to a request for comment
from New Scientist.
This is one of a number
of recent high-profile attacks.
Lake City in Florida paid $530,
in bitcoin to unlock its data in
June, and another Florida city,
Riviera Beach, paid out $600,000.
The strain of ransomware
used is called Ryuk. It was
unleashed by a Russia-based
organised crime group called
Grim Spider in August 2018. It is
estimated that Ryuk earned its
creators more than $3.7 million in
its first four months of operation.
Ryuk, like most ransomware,
secretes itself onto computers

through malicious email

attachments. It encrypts every

file on the computer and directs

the victim to send two encrypted

files to an email address. The two

files are returned, decrypted, along

with a bitcoin wallet address.

The victim must send bitcoins

to this address to unlock the rest.

“As criminals become more

adept and the tools more

sophisticated, yet easier to obtain,

fewer attacks are directed towards

citizens and more towards small

businesses and larger targets,

where greater potential profits lie,”

says Philipp Amann of Europol’s

European Cybercrime Centre.

As more organisations pay

out rather than lose their data,

hackers become bolder. “The

reason we’re seeing so much

ransomware is that it manifestly

works,” says Alan Woodward

at the University of Surrey, UK.

Affected organisations

often have to pay only a small

percentage of the total amount.

Lake City paid about $10,

of the $530,000 ransom, with

its insurance company picking

up the rest.

Giving in to demands is

dangerous, however. “You’re

not guaranteed to get your system

unlocked,” says Woodward,

because the hackers have little

incentive to unlock the data

once they have the money.

Paying up probably increases

the likelihood of future attacks

too: criminals distribute “suckers

lists” of those who have proven

susceptible to extortion.

Stopping such attacks is

difficult, but there are things

people can do. The ransomware

attacks often work because

computer users often have little

understanding of the software

they use. Better IT literacy, such

as knowing not to open email

attachments from strangers,

RIT would help prevent the spread. ❚

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Ransomware attacks

encrypt your data until

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Space health

Exposure to space

radiation not a

problem so far

SPACE exploration is a risky
business. As well as the physical
dangers, radiation – from the sun
and cosmic rays – is thought to put
astronauts at a higher risk of getting
cancer and heart disease in later life.
But so far there is no sign space
travellers are dying early from these
conditions. “We haven’t ruled it out,
but we looked for a signal and we
didn’t see it,” says Robert Reynolds
of Mortality Research & Consulting.

Not enough space-goers have

died from these conditions to just be

able to compare their age of death

with that of other groups. Instead,

Reynolds’s team used a statistical

technique on survival figures for

301 US astronauts and 117 Soviet

and Russian cosmonauts.

A total of 89 have died to date.

Three-quarters of cosmonaut

deaths were due to cancer or

heart disease, but only half

of the astronaut deaths were.

This is principally because there

have been more fatal accidents

in the US space programme, such

as the Challenger shuttle disaster.

Down here on Earth, getting heart

disease doesn’t make you more or

less likely to also get cancer – the

two conditions develop relatively

independently of each other.

But if radiation exposure were

causing a surge in both conditions

among people who have been to

space, then the higher rate of death

from one illness may hide a higher

rate of the other. This is because

anyone who dies from heart

disease can’t also die from cancer.

Reynolds’s team plotted the

space-goers’ deaths over time as

survival curves – which show the

rate at which a particular group is

dying – for each disease, and found

no sign of this dampening effect

(Scientific Reports, doi.org/c72t).

However, that doesn’t rule out

radiation giving space-goers a

higher rate of one condition but not

the other – for instance, if it caused

cancer but not heart disease.

Radiation would hit future Mars

visitors for longer, says Reynolds,

so it could still affect their health. ❚

Clare Wilson

89

Number of astronauts and

cosmonauts who have ever died