USB drives are used by ransomware attackers to distribute malware across the air gap that all industrial distribution, manufacturing, and utility firms rely on as their first line of defense against cyber attacks. According to Honeywell's Industrial Cybersecurity USB Threat Report 2021, 79 percent of USB assaults have the potential to damage operational technologies (OT) that power industrial processing plants. The incidence of malware-based USB attacks is one of the most rapidly developing and difficult-to-detect threat vectors that process industries such as public utilities confront today, according to the research. As the Colonial Pipeline and JBS Foods demonstrate, this type of attack vector is particularly effective. Utility companies are also being targeted by ransomware criminals, as the thwarted water treatment plant attacks in Florida and Northern California illustrate.

Ransomware is being continually mentioned in the daily news and appears to be an unstoppable fiendish craze. Perhaps the recent attack of ransomware on the Colonial Pipeline received the most rapt attention since it led to concerns over gasoline shortages and caused quite a stir among the general public. When ransomware is used against a particular bank or hospital or school, this normally doesn't have quite the same widespread disruption as did the fuel pipeline incident. The thing is, we are probably going to see a lot more ransomware being fielded and doing so against all manner of businesses and governmental entities. Some would assert that we are only so far at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ransomware hacks. Part of the reason why you can expect more use of ransomware is that it is relatively easy for an evildoer to deploy the computer hacking scourge. Whereas the perpetrator used to need to have some keen computer skills, that's not the case anymore. Sadly, ransomware programs can be cheaply purchased online via the so-called dark web, opening the floodgates to just about any determined villain. As a point of clarification, not every use of ransomware is successful.

Ransomware will inevitably plague self-driving cars. Ransomware is being continually mentioned in the daily news and appears to be a seemingly unstoppable fiendish craze. Perhaps the recent attack of ransomware on the Colonial Pipeline received the most rapt attention since it led to concerns over gasoline shortages and caused quite a stir amongst the general public. When ransomware is used against a particular bank or hospital or school, this normally doesn't have quite the same widespread disruption as did the fuel pipeline incident. The thing is, we are probably going to see a lot more ransomware being fielded and doing so against all manner of businesses and governmental entities. Some would assert that we are only so far at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ransomware hacks. Part of the reason why you can expect more use of ransomware is that it is relatively easy for an evildoer or crook to deploy the computer hacking scourge. Whereas the perpetrator used to need to have some keen computer nerdish skills, that's pretty much not the case anymore. Sadly, the ease of attempting to infect computer systems with ransomware has become nearly easy-peasy and has opened the floodgates to just about any determined villain to try (ransomware programs can be cheaply purchased online via the so-called dark web). There are now plentiful Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) capabilities available that will do most of the heavy lifting for those that prefer a hands-off chauffeured form of ransomware cyberattacks.