Ransomware is a piece of red-hot cyber jargon. Perhaps you heard about it when doing your office cybersecurity training, or maybe you read about it in the news.

Perhaps you deal with it every day in your role as a cyber risk expert or, worst-case scenario, you’re one of the unlucky victims to have a dreaded pop-up burst on to your computer screen saying: ‘You’re infected. Pay now!’

Regardless of how you came to hear about one of the fastest growing beasts in the cyber sphere, it’s high time everyone understood the sharpness of its claws.

Ransomware is a type of malicious software that locks and encrypts a victim’s computer data and demands ransom payment in order to regain access.