The United Kingdom and the United States joined forces last week in an initiative to combat ransomware attacks by sanctioning seven Russian nationals believed to be members of a hacking network. Together with U.S. authorities, the UK’s Foreign Office has reportedly identified the individuals in question, frozen their assets and imposed travel bans in respect of them.
Ransomware is a type of malware that typically renders systems or data inaccessible, often due to the encryption of files. Devices are often locked, and data may be leaked, in addition to being encrypted or deleted, unless and until the victim pays a “ransom” to the actors who deployed the ransomware in return for decryption.
