A while ago, we posed this question, “Do You Need a Ransomware Preparedness Assessment?”

Though most are familiar with malware and viruses that infect computers and delete files or display advertisements, there’s a much more sinister form of malicious technology that’s becoming increasingly commonplace in corporate computer networks: ransomware.

On Friday, May 12, a number of National Health Service (NHS) facilities in the UK reported that their computers suffered a ransomware attack, and started causing a significant impact on operations. Ransomware, a form of malware that infects a computer and encrypts files until the user pays a ransom (usually in Bitcoin) to recover them, has made news headlines over the last few years, but this may be the most prominent such attack to date. The NHS’s public statement asserts that the ransomware did not intend to target its facilities specifically, and other news outlets report attacks against other, unrelated organizations in different countries. The story continued to unfold.