Difference between Cyber Extortion and Ransomware

What is Ransomware?

Ransomware is simply malicious software (malware) that locks victims out of their devices or data until they pay a ransom. Hackers encrypt your information, making it unreadable without the correct decryption key, e.g. a password.

Difference between Cyber Extortion and Ransomware Picture 1

Ransomware often targets companies where the inability to access data can lead to loss of customers and brand trust. The amount of information held by businesses is also more significant than the amount of information held by individuals. For example, that's one reason healthcare organizations are so vulnerable to this form of attack: The amount of private data, even just personally identifiable information (PII), that comes from such a place. holding is also especially valuable.

However, no one is safe from ransomware, so this malware can also infect individuals.

What is Cyber Extortion?

Cyber Extortion is the act of holding sensitive data for ransom. Yes, it sounds a lot like ransomware, but that's because ransomware is often associated with extortion and cyber exploitation. However, that is not always true.

Difference between Cyber Extortion and Ransomware Picture 2

Cyber Extortion can involve extortion through other methods, so your entire network doesn't necessarily need to be encrypted. Instead, anyone with private information or images that you don't want released to third parties can threaten you for ransom.

Sextortion is a good example of this: It involves a scammer keeping a person's adult images, messages, and/or videos, using them as leverage to get what they want.

How can Ransomware lead to Cyber Extortion?

Any ransomware holds data for ransom. To gain access again, there will be a level of blackmail. There is a clear line drawn between being infected with ransomware and becoming a victim of Cyber Extortion.

Cyber Extortion doesn't have to involve money either: Bad guys can force you to provide more data, causing you to spread ransomware or viruses or phishing messages, with additional photos of you (possibly NSFW images or videos), or any other form of blackmail.

So can Cyber Extortion lead to ransomware? Yes, any means of extortion can lead to further infections with malware such as ransomware. Just because you give in to hackers' demands doesn't mean they will play nice with you.

Differences and similarities between Ransomware and Cyber Extortion

Difference between Cyber Extortion and Ransomware Picture 3

While ransomware is the actual software used, Cyber Extortion is the action of one party to make money from that malware.

Ransomware locks a system, while Cyber Extortion can apply to many different situations. It's anything digital used against you, including email and text phishing, romance scams, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Of course, many different types of ransomware can affect you, and some forms of Cyber Extortion, like phishing, can involve ransomware.

However, the purpose of ransomware and Cyber Extortion is the same: Blackmail the victim.

Jessica Tanner

Update 18 June 2024

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