What is ransomware and what can be done to stop it?
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 22 May 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the past few weeks Marks & Spencer, the Co-op and Harrods have all been grappling with the effects of cyber attacks. The most profitable form of cyber attack at the moment is ransomware where criminals infiltrate computer systems, shut them down and then demand a ransom to restore services, or even to stop them publishing data they’ve stolen. This is now a global criminal industry which can affect the running of whole businesses. Marks & Spencer said this week that disruption to its online ordering service would continue throughout June and into July. David Aaronovitch asks his guests how ransomware works, who is responsible and what can be done to stop it.
Guests: Emily Taylor, CEO of Oxford Information Labs and co-founder Global Signal Exchange Geoff White, investigative journalist and author and co-host of the BBC’s podcast series, The Lazarus Heist Susan Landau, Professor of Cyber Security and Policy at Tufts University Professor Alan Woodward, a computer security expert at the University of Surrey
Presenter: David Aaronovitch Producers: Caroline Bayley, Kirsteen Knight and Nathan Gower Production co-ordinator: Katie Morrison Sound Engineers: James Beard and Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Vadon
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:08.8 | Can't get your low-cut socks from Marx, almost empty shelves in your local co-op? |
| 0:15.1 | Inconvenient for you, but potentially a disaster for the companies, |
| 0:18.9 | because the reason is that both have been victims of cyber attacks that have paralyzed their computer systems. |
| 0:24.6 | The most profitable form of cyber attack at the moment is ransomware, where criminals infiltrate computer systems, |
| 0:31.6 | shut them down and then demand a ransom to restore services, or even demand the money to stop them publishing data they've stolen. |
| 0:40.9 | Four years ago, we made an episode about ransomware, |
| 0:43.7 | but it's clear that the problem hasn't gone away. |
| 0:46.7 | So what exactly is ransomware? |
| 0:49.2 | Who's responsible? |
| 0:50.7 | What can be done about it? |
| 0:52.3 | And why hasn't it been done already? |
| 0:54.8 | Step into the briefing room and together we'll find out. |
| 1:03.1 | First, how do these ransomware attacks work? |
| 1:06.4 | Emily Taylor is CEO of Oxford Information Labs and co-founder of the Global Signal Exchange. |
| 1:12.9 | Emily Taylor, can you explain to me and the listener how a ransomware attack works? |
| 1:18.7 | If you were in a company and you were subject to ransomware, probably the first thing that you would |
| 1:24.4 | know is that nothing works. You can't get in. It's like being |
| 1:28.6 | locked out of your house, locking your keys in the car. You can see where you want to be, but you |
| 1:35.0 | can't be in there. You can't get into your computer system. You can't get into your computer |
| 1:38.2 | system. And so think about all of the different ways that we use systems, particularly in complex businesses. |
| 1:46.3 | It's about your email, all your communications, all your business records, everything that's going on, |
... |
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