Ransomware: A Corporate Threat That Cannot Be Overlooked

Abstract

Ransomware became a form of cyber threats that was able to broadly impact or may enormously damage organizations. This article aims to transfer knowledge and enhance awareness associated with ransomware among related stakeholders, namely system administrators, executives, and staff within the organizations. The authors had studied and collected related information about ransomware, including its evolution, concept, form, and strategies, and also the guidelines to deal with ransomware. In addition, the news about ransomware in Thailand and overseas reported on the Internet was also assembled. From this study, it was found that ransomware obstructed the information access by logging in or locking all the tools and systems. There were various kinds of ransomware. Most cases of ransomware targeted large private corporations, government organizations and national infrastructure systems. The most serious ransomware was the case that the files were permanently lost although the ransom had been paid. Therefore, both private and public organizations needed to raise awareness of the cyber threats in their organizations through various processes,
such as training, knowledge transfer, and capacity enhancing of personnel at different levels, in particular information system administrators and users, so that they were knowledgeable and capable of preventing and dealing with problems that might occur from ransomware attacks. Able of preventing and dealing with problems that may occur from ransomware attacks.