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Sensei Officers Quoted in Virginia Lawyers Weekly

May 30, 2017

Both Sharon Nelson and John Simek were quoted in “The bad guys WILL get in: Preparing for cyber intruders, inevitable breach” by Peter Vieth featured in Virginia Lawyers Weekly.
Excerpt: One of the scariest cyber threats is ransomware – a malicious program that can take over your computer, or your whole network, and block access to your files until you pay the ransom. Incidents increased by 165 percent in 2015 and by 400 percent in 2016, according to Fairfax digital forensics technologist John Simek.

“It’s definitely growing,” said Jim Calloway with the Oklahoma Bar Association, who writes and lectures on law practice management. The cost of the fix is growing, too, as perpetrators realize the effectiveness of their scheme. Where the average ransom amount was once about $100, the payoff now ranges from $300 to $3,000, Simek said. Payments in 2016 were expected to reach $1 billion, the FBI said.

At a recent conference in Emporia, two Virginia law firms reported paying $1,200 and $3,000 for the encryption keys to unlock their data, Nelson said. An accidental click on an inviting email link can unleash the ransomware. A message will tell the user that payment must be made within a certain period or the walled-off data will be permanently unavailable, tech experts said.