ABSTRACT
Over the last few years, ransomware attacks have raised disturbing concerns globally. It is predicted to be the most challenging cyber threat in the upcoming years because of the increasing level of sophistication and anonymity the criminals employ, especially the demand for bitcoin and other crypto currencies with high degree of intractability. Thus, it has become crucial that organizations, governments and business owners device a strategy for the mitigation of this highly powerful malware to reduce the surface of opportunities. In this paper, a survey of ransomware attack trends are reviewed and analyzed, providing more insightful knowledge on the menace and consequences. Then, a novel integrated approach for mitigating the harmful effects of ransomware is proposed. In this, a variety of approaches are combined to develop a classical integrated approach that can detect and prevent ransomware defensively. This conceptual approach demonstrated using a flowchart has the capability to proactively handle or mitigate ransomware attacks.
Keywords:
attacks, crypto currencies, cyber-attacks, cyber threats, cyber defense, proactive defense
