Abstract
A staggering 550,000 ransomware attacks were recorded daily during the year of 2020 netting cybercriminals an immense amount of capital estimated to be over 1.5 trillion dollars. Owing their success to aging infrastructure and lack of defensive funding, malicious groups have been employing ransomware to entirely shut down critical infrastructure including medical equipment, gas, and oil pipelines, communication systems in the fields of healthcare, the military, and key spheres of industry around the world. All these incidents are posing a threat to smart city infrastructures. This also presents a large challenge for organizations when determining how to protect themselves from these popular and devastating attacks. Fortunately, the increase in ransomware attacks has caused a resurgence in cybersecurity, specifically, ransomware mitigation strategies and software which are designed to detect and prevent ransomware attacks before they can cause damage. In this chapter we will address the techniques and tools used to create and deploy ransomware, the historical effects of ransomware in large scale, global events, and the most effective techniques organizations can adopt to mitigate and prevent ransomware attacks. Through continual understanding of the nature of ransomware, we aim to educate end-users and organizations alike about the capabilities of ransomware as well as the protection strategies available in an effort to support the evolving and relentless fight against ransomware.
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Lamers, C., Spoerl, E., Levey, G., Choudhury, N., Ahmed, M. (2023). Ransomware: A Threat to Cyber Smart Cities. In: Ahmed, M., Haskell-Dowland, P. (eds) Cybersecurity for Smart Cities. Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24946-4_13
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