John Oliver Takes Up Ransomware On "Last Week Tonight"

System administrators, IT professionals and cybersecurity experts have been sounding the alarm over ransomware and the increasing frequency of attacks over the last few months, and their message is now beginning to be picked up by mainstream media.

Ransomware is now rising to a national security level thanks to recent attacks against Colonial Pipeline, JBS and other companies, which is giving the issue more media attention. Now, night show hosts like John Oliver are also taking up the charge.

The host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” spent more than 20 minutes on the topic Sunday night, imploring organizations and consumers everywhere to take cybersecurity much more seriously than they are.

Oliver ran through some of the more notorious ransomware attacks, including the rEvil attack leveraging Kaseya VSA, noting that major ransomware attacks are occurring more often than ever before.

“And if you’re thinking, ‘Hold on, is it just me, or did they not used to be a massive ransomware attack every two months?’ You’re actually right,” Oliver said. “Over the past few years, it’s gone from a trickle to an absolute flood. The estimated total ransoms paid quadrupled to $350 million last year.”

Oliver pointed to three things contributing to the proliferation of ransomware:

Ransomware-as-a-service. This model of cybercrime makes it easy for anyone to deploy ransomware with little technical skill.
The rise of cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is largely untraceable, which makes it hard for law enforcement to trace and recover payments.
Countries providing safe havens for cybercriminals. Oliver pointed to countries like Russia that don’t prosecute ransomware operators as long as they don’t target organizations within the country.

The late night host commended the U.S. government for taking steps to stem the tide of ransomware and other cyber attacks, but called on the private sector and consumers to also do their part.

Oliver, citing the most basic of cybersecurity best practices that you should be pushing on your users, says to follow these three basic steps:

Enable multi-factor authentication.
Keep systems up to date.
Don’t click on suspicious emails.

For more advanced steps on how to protect against ransomware, download our guide about defending against new ransomware attack methods here.

Public awareness about basic cybersecurity measures like those may seem boilerplate and low level to the average IT professional, but given how much the ransomware industry has grown over the last few years, it’s clear that this message needs more airtime.

“The fact is it is in everyone’s interest to get this under control, because right now, it really, really isn’t,” Oliver said.

It wouldn’t be a John Oliver program without a lot of jokes about the very serious issue at hand, so watch this clip to see how he uses his platform to get the message across.