Lawfare Daily: The Shadowy World of Ransomware with Professor Anja Shortland

Lawfare Book Review Editor Jonathan Cedarbaum sits down with Anja Shortland, professor of political economy at King's College London, to discuss her new book, "Dark Screens: Hackers and Heroes in the Shadowy World of Ransomware." The book offers a history of the development of ransomware into perhaps the most important form of cyber crime, costing the global economy $75 billion a year. In the book, Shortland depicts the evolving strategies of ransomware organizations and the efforts by governments and corporations to defend themselves from this often crippling type of cyber attack.

Shortland and Cedarbaum talk about the emergence of organized criminal groups specializing in digital extortion over the past 15 years, some of their most spectacular hacks, how target organizations have worked to make themselves more resilient to ransomware attacks, and how governments have sought to disrupt ransomware groups.

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