What is Ransomware and how does it work?

Ransomware is a type of malicious software, or malware, that threatens a victim by destroying or blocking access to critical data or systems until a ransom is paid. Historically, most ransomware targeted individuals, but more recently, human-operated ransomware, which targets organizations, has become the larger and more difficult threat to prevent and reverse. With human-operated ransomware, a group of attackers use their collective intelligence to gain access to an organization’s enterprise network. Some attacks of this kind are so sophisticated that the attackers use internal financial documents they’ve uncovered to set the ransom price.