Dark Screens: Hackers and Heroes in the Shadowy World of Ransomware

by Anja Shortland

A riveting account of major ransomware attacks and their devastating consequences, revealing how exposed we really are—and how we can protect ourselves Imagine opening your computer only to find every document and every program locked. All you can see is a red screen with a countdown timer, urging you to pay a ransom within 72 hours or lose access forever. For more than a decade, hackers have been extorting billions of dollars from businesses, governments, and individuals with ever more sophisticated variations on this simple scheme.   Dark Screens offers a ringside seat to the most notorious ransomware attacks of the twenty-first century. It sheds light on the inner workings of criminal gangs that target hospitals, public infrastructure, and vulnerable companies—as well as the individuals and organizations trying to stop them. It tracks how ransomware is becoming a weapon of cyberwar, as seen in the Russian “NotPetya” attack, and the worldwide “WannaCry” cyberattack by North Korea. Ransomware expert Anja Shortland shares these stories to sound the alarm about how vulnerable we are to cyberattacks and highlight best practices from cybersecurity and crisis management to law enforcement and public policy.   Dark Screens shines a light on the fascinating underworld of superhackers whose activities have potentially catastrophic implications for us all.

288 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication April 28, 2026

Reviews

[Scott Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shortland gives us a compelling history and detailed autopsies of the biggest most recent cybersecurity failures. While breaking down ransomware escapades, we also get an insight into how hacking cartels work, get created and get dismantled. We learn about collaborative efforts to reduce ransomware instances and the costs associated with recovery. Since 2021, the number of incidences has decreased: global efforts have occurred to find and shut down hack-farms; corporations have tightened up security e.g. requiring multi-factor authentication method(s) for all users; identification of risky penetrations—phishing, etc.—has increased. In fact, a Sophos cybersecurity survey—cited by government task forces—shows a decrease in the ransoms awarded to reclaim data and acces, and the number of instances. The leading reason for breaches are holes in IT security systems; for example, one major incident described in the book happened because registered users could access the system by only entering their user ID and no password was required.

While the recommendations in the book can be found in several task force reports and many cyber security white papers, this seems to be a thorough narrative of how we got here, from the start of personal computers, and the internet to just last year. For anyone who wants to know what’s happening on a global scale to combat this, and read about some successes, this is a must read.