Tens of thousands of British businesses could have hackers waiting inside their systems – all because of a change in the business model of hacking.
Luxury fashion brand Dior is the latest retailer to announce that some of its customer data has been stolen by attackers, and M&S is still suffering the effects of an attack that started in April.
On Tuesday, the British retailer revealed customer data had been stolen, although “usable” payment details and passwords were not taken.
Online shopping remains unavailable at M&S and recruitment has been paused while the company tries to get the effects of the attack under control.
Co-op appears to have narrowly avoided a full-blown crisis by spotting criminals in its network and shutting down its operations, and Harrods also revealed it recently fended off hackers trying to exploit its systems.
Although the attacks have not been connected by investigators, the increasing number of high-profile incidents could be down to a change in the hacking market, according to Dr Harjinder Lallie.
“It’s just frightening,” said Dr Lallie, a university reader in cybersecurity at the University of Warwick, to Sky News.
“I’ve been in cybersecurity for 26 years – I’ve never known a time like this.”
File pic: Reuters
The criminals behind DragonForce, a powerful suite of tools that hold companies hostage until they pay a ransom, recently changed their business model.
“They moved to a model which we refer to as ‘ransomware-as-a-service’.
“If I’m Dragon Force, I’ll say to you: ‘You can use my very, very powerful tools to conduct the attack, and you can keep 80% of everything you collect, as long as I get 20% of it.'” explained Dr Lallie.
That means wannabe-hackers “no longer need the technical know-how” to launch an attack, he said.
