Information security breaches due to ransomware attacks - a systematic literature review

Ransomware is the most predominant cyber threat in the digital infrastructure. The attackers launching ransomware attacks use different techniques to hijack the users’ or organizations’ files and resources to demand ransom in exchange to free the encrypted/captured data or resources. Although there are many malware attacks, ransomware is considered most dangerous as it imposes a high financial burden on the organization. The crypto-currency is an untraceable payment method that the attacker uses to receive ransom from victims to conceal his/her identity and location. This still creates challenges to trace the attacker or attackers’ networks. The article uses the systematic literature review (SLR) approach to provide significant study on the ransomware attacks as it is the area that requires top most attention in critical infrastructure. The paper briefs the various types of ransomware, vulnerabilities, attack methodologies, impacts, mitigation and prevention techniques of the attacks. This research study is mainly focused on Windows OS vulnerabilities. These findings in the survey will be highly beneficial to understand the effects of ransomware attacks in critical infrastructure environments and the use of machine learning to detect and prevent these attacks.