WIREDGOV

This is the fourth in a series of articles on the top 10 serious and organised crime threats to the UK and their evolution over a decade. This article traces the journey of the threat and response to cybercrime – specifically, ransomware, which has emerged as the most disruptive cyber threat to the UK’s national security and society today.

Over the last 10 years, cybercrime has entered the realm of national security. This shift has been driven by one type of cybercrime in particular – ransomware.

Emerging from the Russian cyber-criminal ecosystem in the early 2010s, ransomware today is a highly disruptive form of cybercrime that encompasses a range of tactics and techniques designed to extort ransoms from individuals, businesses and even governments. Although cyber fraud likely affects more individual UK citizens on a personal level and generates greater economic losses, ransomware is a particularly acute threat to the UK because of its ability to cause harm to nationally important services – ranging from the ability of local councils to provide social care or ensure your bins are collected to the provision of essential healthcare services. Put simply, ransomware can (and does) ruin people’s lives.

Ransomware has proven to be highly lucrative for many of the criminals that participate, with UK victims paying an average ransom payment of £1.6 million in 2023 according to one survey. Large profit margins have enabled ransomware operators to reinvest revenues, expand their capabilities, and largely stay ahead of cyber defenders and law enforcement. Although the National Crime Agency (NCA) and its international counterparts have had some tactical successes against the ransomware ecosystem, absent a major shift in the cost–benefit calculus of ransomware operators, the next 10 years of cybercrime will likely continue to be dominated by this pernicious form of offending.

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