Korea, U.S. research teams join forces to fight ransomware

Korea, U.S. research teams join forces to fight ransomware
Source: Park Ki-woong, Sejong University

By Dain Oh, The Readable
Sep. 28, 2022 7:50PM KST

Cybersecurity researchers in South Korea and the United States will put their heads together with an aim to restrain ransomware attacks around the world.

According to a press release by Sejong University, researchers at four different institutions of cybersecurity located in South Korea and the United States, including the University of Virginia and MITRE, will cooperate on ransomware research for the next two years.

The main objective of the research is to build an international platform for the sharing of information related to ransomware. In the cybersecurity industry, information sharing is considered to be key to constraining ransomware crimes which have been internationally diversified.

The platform, which the research team calls “The Ransomware Cooperative Response Platform,” will encompass an entire cycle of ransomware attacks. It consists of four stages: Preparation, detection, containment, and post-incident activity. The research team expects that an international cybersecurity community will be able to effectively respond to ransomware attacks once the platform is built.

Furthermore, various technologies will be developed through the research in order to detect ransomware attacks and identify threat actors more quickly. The research team also plans to build an international dataset of ransomware incidents and set standards regarding the collection of ransomware data.

The research will be led by Park Ki-woong, associate professor in the Department of Computer and Information Security at Sejong University. “Ransomware attacks have evolved in a way that is more organized and clever,” said Park. “In order to respond to the threats, which are internationally rising, the four institutions went through numerous brainstorming meetings and planned this research.”

The research will be funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation.

ohdain@thereadable.co


Dain Oh is an award-winning cybersecurity journalist based in South Korea and the founding editor-in-chief of The Readable by S2W. Before joining S2W, she worked as a reporter for The Electronic Times, the top IT newspaper in Korea, covering the cybersecurity industry on an in-depth level. She reported numerous exclusive stories, and her work related to the National Intelligence Service led to her being honored with the Journalist of the Year Award in 2021 by the Korea Institute of Information Security and Cryptology in a unanimous decision. She was also the first journalist to report on the hacking of vulnerable wallpads in South Korean apartments, which later became a nation-wide issue.