Financial institutions face increased risk of cyber attacks that involve extortion, the FFIEC has warned. During an extortion attack, cyber criminals use a variety of tactics including ransomware, denial of service (DoS) and theft of sensitive information to extort payment or other concessions from victims. Often, an extortion attack encrypts the data on the target machine, making data inaccessible. The victim is then prompted to make a payment in order to release or unlock the files. In some cases, these attacks have caused significant impacts on businesses’ access to data and ability to provide services. Other businesses have incurred serious damage through the release of sensitive information. Financial institutions can learn how to protect themselves from cyber attacks here.