Those of us who have worked in cybersecurity for many years often start to think we’ve “seen it all.” We haven’t. This year’s CrowdStrike® Global Threat Report provides clear evidence of that. Consider the dark turn in cybercrime toward preying on schools, municipal departments and our other chronically understaffed and overburdened public institutions. This is different from targeting large government entities and corporations, many of whom have resigned themselves to being targeted by cyber predators and have the opportunity to try to protect themselves from that onslaught.
It’s a different matter entirely when the targets are schoolchildren, or just ordinary people trying to go about their daily lives. This merciless ransomware epidemic will continue, and worsen, as long as the practice remains lucrative, and relatively easy and risk-free. We’ve developed a platform designed to stop ransomware for our customers, and we’ve worked hard to make it easy and affordable — even for budget-constrained institutions like our public school systems. As more organizations around the world deploy next-generation platforms like CrowdStrike Falcon® that can prevent these threats, the criminal element will be forced to redirect its efforts elsewhere.