Navigating the Landscape of Ransomware Detection Methods: A Review

The global impact of ransomware on cybersecurity has increased alarmingly in recent years. It is the cause of important financial damage for individuals as well as for corporations. From the early days of computers, this type of malware has never ceased to evolve, finding new ways to evade current anti-ransomware detection. Ransomware is a malicious code or piece of code designed to extort payment from victims. Considerable advances have been done on ransomware detection. Nevertheless, many of the proposed solutions fall short because of the continuous sophistication of ransomware. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the recent evolution of ransomware and a critical analysis of state-of-art research contributions based on well-defined evaluation metrics. Our analysis covers various ransomware detection techniques and contrasts their merits and limitations. This review goal is to be a constructive guide for ransomware-oriented research.