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One such ransomware gang is the group behind the Crysis ransomware, who's been recently using RDP brute-force attacks to infect large organizations. In the past six months, this group's activity has more than doubled, according to security firm Trend Micro.

Evil hackers with monomaniacal intentions of a globe-disrupting nature have long dominated pop culture sensibilities. But when it comes to for-profit hacking, it's important to remember that cybercrime has been, and remains, predominantly a business-driven concern, says Eduardo Cabrera, chief cybersecurity officer of endpoint security vendor Trend Micro.

According to Trend Micro, most of the attacks are targeting the healthcare sector in the United States, though other industries were hit hard as well.

A recent Trend Micro report revealed that attacks on business emails and business processes will continue to grow in 2017 because they’re cheap and simple forms of corporate extortion.

“Apps may request admin­istrative privileges to your data, and those privileges could be used by the app later on, or by some malware, to steal your personal information,” says Ed Cabrera, chief cybersecurity officer at TrendMicro, a digital security company.