Ransomware

Ransomware is nothing new. Neal Stephenson wrote one of his worst novels on the topic. A few years ago, a school I worked for lost months worth of files because we were attacked and hadn't backed up our files. It really sucked to lose months worth of planning, but maybe something more is going on.

Over at NEO-NEOCON, there is speculation about just who Marcus Hutchins is. We face, I think, a serious dilemma. The most important thing to keep in mind is Snyder's advice to remain calm when the unthinkable happens. This exploit is just a harbinger of things to come. What needs to happen is a real investigation into what happened.

For the next few weeks, the Tangential Dispatch will be devoting most of its time to covering this latest Ransomware attack.

What we need to combat cyber attacks is what we already have: a relatively decentralized system. What we don't need to combat cyber attacks is a more centralized system.