Ransomware’s Pivot: A Business School Case Study

The report describes the evolution of ransomware from simple file encryption to 'double extortion' attacks that exfiltrate data prior to encryption, providing stronger leverage for ransom demands. It references widespread impacts (including 2019 municipal attacks and a recent incident where data theft forced a payment despite the ransomware itself being blocked) and recommends inline proxy sandboxing and comprehensive SSL inspection—promoting Zscaler Cloud Sandbox—as primary mitigations.