The recent ranswomware attack on the big payments processor TSYS could portend worse to come for the payments business as cyber criminals seek vulnerabilities in the industry and carry out new tactics to squeeze out ransom payments from their victims.
More attacks on credit and debit processors are “absolutely” coming, says Julie Conroy, research director at Aite Group, a Boston-based consultancy. “It’s definitely an increasing attack vector,” for ransomware, she adds.
While TSYS, which became part of Global Payments Inc. last year, is a major processor in its own right, smaller payments firms could be especially at risk to sustain these attacks, in which the invaders use encryption technology to lock up the victim firm’s data and then demand a ransom—typically in Bitcoin—to deliver the decryption key.