As evidenced by a worldwide attack on hospital and industrial systems that’s currently getting a lot of press, the number of systems being attacked using ransomware is on the rise. The attack in question uses the WannaCrypt ransomware based on WannaCry. And it brings up a good question: Is there a difference between ransomware and malware?
Simply put, ransomware is a subset of malware. Malware attacks usually come in the form of a computer virus or worm. A virus piggybacks on something like a document, spreadsheet or e-mail, whereas a worm is a more active attack. It starts on a networked computer system and attempts to subvert one or more computers on the network. This used to be difficult when networked computers were limited in number and connectivity. These days, of course, the internet effectively links billions of devices.