Hackers love the holidays. For many hackers, even a regular weekend is a good time to take action. But a long weekend, when everyone is out of the house or the office having fun with family and friends, (carefully avoiding anything related to work) is truly perfect. And while this trend isn't new, a joint warning issued this week by the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency underscores just how serious the threat has become. The reason is pretty simple. Most hacker attacks on individuals or companies are ransomware (literally 'ransom attack') that encrypt all data within a system making it inaccessible. Only a large sum of money paid in Bitcoin to the criminals will be able to make the information available again. These attacks take time to spread across a network because hackers are trying hard to increase their privileges to have maximum control over most systems. This is why they strike on holidays or on long bridges: the longer it takes the victims to notice, the more damage they can do.
