The Conti ransomware group’s threat to overthrow the Costa Rican government is an extremely worrying development in the ongoing crisis, highlighting the ruthlessness of cyber criminal groups and the lack of honour among thieves.

Conti has demanded a $20 million ransom after they stole current and former employees’ information. The attack has caused disruption on customs and tax platforms which has ultimately led to severe impacts on the country’s foreign trade. Gangs are ruthless-they don’t care about the financial and social impacts on civilians, and are only interested in targets which yield the greatest monetary gain.

In the past, we have seen ransomware groups target vital, life-threatening services to get a quick payday. During the early months of the pandemic, ransomware gangs had promised not to target medical organisations due to the pressure they were under, however, once again, cyber criminals showed that, for monetary gain, nothing is off limits and they soon started stealing medical data.

We have continuously seen the effects of ransomware gangs targeting critical organisations, and this should be a learning curve for every country and enterprise across the world about the importance of investing in preventative solutions, rather than reactive solutions, to ensure that cyberattacks are stopped before they damage a network.

Solutions such as Deep Learning – a subset of AI, can help to shift security teams’ mindset from mitigating cyberattacks to preventing them. Deep learning delivers a sub-20 millisecond response time, stopping a ransomware attack before it can execute and take hold of an organisation’s network. With deep learning, cyber criminal gangs will no longer be the master puppeteers but will be in a state of emergency unable to find an easy profit.