Companies hit by ransomware are faced with an ethical dilemma: pay up to save their now-encrypted data, or hold the moral high ground and lose it all.
This is a question many companies may have to face. The recent WannaCry cyber-attack, which targeted the data of organisations including UK hospitals, is part of a growing and lucrative “industry”.
In most cases, the perpetrators attempt to encrypt a business’s data and then refuse to share the decryption key unless a ransom is paid. WannaCry reportedly demanded that companies pay upwards of US$300 in Bitcoin.
