Sunlight for the Ransomware Data Recovery Industry
ProPublica and the Guardian recently published an exhaustive investigatory report on two ransomware data recovery firms. We are grateful for the effort the journalists have taken to shine a flashlight on the dishonest practices of certain firms in the industry, and hope that these publications will lead to a heightened understanding of the rights that every victim of ransomware has, and the risks that companies undertake when working through a cyber incident.
The practices described in today’s publications highlight an issue that we uncovered before founding Coveware, and which motivated us to build an honest, transparent experience for victims, as well as a data aggregation point for ransomware cases. Our mission since founding has not changed, and we work every day to put our aggregated data to good use in 3 key ways:
For the benefit of victims by providing visibility into what the potential outcome of their case may be, based on similar cases in our data set;
By engaging with the security community to publish research, best practices and to raise awareness of the risks associated with ransomware
By assisting law enforcement in anyway we can.
As the industry has evolved, we have welcomed the regulatory changes and continue to publish as much data as possible to better inform the community. We hope today’s stories continue to push the evolutionary pace of the industry into new territory that benefits current and future victims of cyber attacks.