Tag Archives: Blackmail

Why digital extortion works better than blackmail

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Door David Sancho, Senior Antivirus Researcher, Trend Micro

Smart cybercriminals rely on rational decisions

Cybercriminals today are going all in with digital extortion. Their business model isn’t exactly new. “I want you to do this, or I’ll break your legs”, is easily translated to “I want you to do this, because I have your data.” Extortion has always existed and it’s a brilliant business model, albeit an unethical one. Therefore, I’m not at all surprised by the popularity of the digital variant today. You only have to look at the massive succes of ransomware to see wat I mean. Continue reading →

Data leaks lead to personal blackmail and extortion

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shutterstock_16411288The third quarter of 2015 (July – September) was a time where we saw some significant threat activity in the areas of Point of Sale (PoS) malware, vulnerabilities and sophisticated Pawn Storm attacks. In our third quarter security roundup Hazards Ahead: Current Vulnerabilities Prelude Impending Attacks we address all these activities. Continue reading →

2016 Predictions: The Fine Line Between Business and Personal

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TheFineLineOnline blackmail, hacktivism and mobile malware are still on the rise in 2016. These perhaps less surprising trends in Trend Micro’s report ‘The Fine Line: 2016 Security Predictions’ are clouded by one striking prediction: “due to the increasing use of smart devices in our daily activities, at least one smart device failure will have lethal consequences. Call it the first human cyber casualties or what you will, it is at the very least a prediction that we should consider for a moment. Continue reading →