SonicWall’s Bill Conner Talks Ransomware on the Radio

This week’s Brazil-based JBS attack, the world’s largest meat producer, marks the third cyberattack on a major U.S. entity since January 2021. With ransomware attacks now impacting global economies and the daily lives of citizens, the waging cyberwar has taken center stage.

SonicWall President and CEO Bill Conner discusses who is responsible for rising attacks on enterprises, governments and SMBs worldwide and what’s to be done with KRLD NewsRadio 1080 radio host Dave Johnson in a recent interview.

“We’re past the tipping point now in [the] arms race,” said Conner. “The new tools that the bad guys are using are the stuff we use as good guys. So, they’re now using the cloud to take terabytes of data and store it anywhere in the world.

“They’re using cloud applications to target [organizations], just like they did with SolarWinds, and now they’re taking advantage of Microsoft Windows and authentication. It is past an arms race at this point.”

Conner and Johnson go on to discuss what governments need to do to “go on the offensive collectively” to thwart sophisticated and increasingly targeted attacks. Through April 2021, SonicWall Capture Labs threat researcher recorded a 90% year-to-date increase in ransomware. In fact, April 2021 was the highest single month of ransomware ever recorded by SonicWall.

“[Attackers] are going after everything,” warned Conner. “The ones that you’re just reading about are the ones that they’re actually getting away with and getting through [systems] today. Tomorrow is another story.”

The two go on to discuss the cybersecurity industry’s pressing issues such as disclosure, legislation and the world-wide phenomena of ransomware attacks.

Listen to the full interview below.

SonicWall Staff