Ransomware here to stay says Google

Businesses are being warned to protect themselves after tech giant Google released research claiming that cyber thieves have extorted a total of £19m from ransomware since 2015.

At a talk at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, Elie Bursztein from Google revealed the results of research conducted with Chainalysis, the University of California and New York University which looked at bitcoin transactions over the period. It concluded that ransomware has become a “very profitable market and is here to stay”.

Interestingly, Google highlighted the fact that less than 40% of computer users currently back up their data – a move which could protect you in the event of a ransomware attack. It also predicted that more varied strains of ransomware are being developed to compete with the already popular Locky and Cerber strains, which according to the report generated £5.9m and £5.2m from victims respectively.

1bn Yahoo users’ information stolen in biggest breach ever

Internet giant Yahoo announced this week that it had discovered over 1bn of its users’ accounts had been compromised following a historical hack three years ago.

Yahoo has announced that they have discovered a historical hack from August 2013 which surpasses their own previously set record of 500 million accounts, set only months earlier in September. This is an act that they claimed had been conducted by an ‘unnamed’ government.