Headline after headline confirms that ransomware actors are often successful when it comes to targeting business, governmental agencies, public utilities and other high-profile targets. But how, exactly, are they able penetrate the defenses of these presumably well-protected targets?

And are small and medium-sized businesses overlooked when it comes to such attacks? In How Ransomware Sneaks In, the first installment of an exciting new series from Carbonite + Webroot, we talk to some of the world’s foremost experts on ransomware for their takes on how cybercriminals sneak ransomware onto business and personal systems.

They discuss the role opportunism plays in the targeting process and why thinking big targets are the only targets is a fundamental misunderstanding of the victim selection process. With ideas from futurists, former hackers and other cybersecurity professionals, the episode explores specific cases of exploitation by ransomware and what went wrong to enable it.

It also asks if fundamental flaws in the way we think (or don’t) about our own cybersecurity play into the success of malicious hackers wielding ransomware. Could embracing cybersecurity as a “decision-based science” help us overcome challenges based by ransomware?

Over the course of Ransomware 2021, experts from within and outside of Carbonite + Webroot will explore every facet of ransomware and explain how to defend against this multi-billion-dollar racket. While businesses are often unwilling to discuss their run-ins with ransomware, we sit down with men and women who have made careers studying and dealing with the after-effects of this particularly devastating form of malware.

Tune in for the first episode, How Ransomware Sneaks In, to learn how businesses are targeted and then compromised, and why extortion is often only the beginning of the story when it comes to the damage done.