In 2017, we saw digital extortion increasingly become cybercriminals’ first and foremost money-making modus operandi. It’s mostly due to ransomware — cybercriminals’ currently most popular weapon of choice, helping them in extorting cash from users all over the world and in hitting big businesses and organizations.

By infecting business-critical systems through their shotgun-style ransomware attacks and thus crippling enterprise day-to-day operations, cybercriminals managed to force big companies to bend to their will. Digital extortion has become the most successful moneymaking venture for cybercriminals, and the most effective in terms of the scale of their victims. Big or small, everyone gets hit, and everyone has to pay.