Ransomware seams to be a constant threat in the modern world, where hackers just encrypt your hard-drive and demand bitcoin or other digital currency for the key to decipher it. For most people unable to pay they lose data on the drive and have to start again. However, for mission critical business operations, like Hospitals.
It has been estimated to have costed the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), £92 million, in restoring data and systems. In the age of cyberpunk, it may well be cheaper to pay the ransom to recover the critical data. Which ever way the chips fall, it seems likely that various parts of the city may fail from data-corrupted infrastructure.
For the locals on the street is can be a mixed bag. On the one side, an attack on the Metro’s ticketing system causes a charge of $0. Although people will have to wait for the trains to come back online. However, having a power surge wipe out 5 city blocks in the height of summer is going to cost lives. As people slowly cook while trapped inside during the heatwave.
It’s in this environment that something like this might happen, The Cyber-Avengers Protecting Hospitals From Ransomware. A new form of vigilante group that helps protect the city. Facing off against cyber-criminals or the fallout from the latest covert corporate exchange.