A Free and Community-Driven Critical Infrastructure Ransomware Dataset

Abstract

Recent ransomware attacks against critical infrastructure have stressed the need for a deeper understanding of the threat landscape and trends. Yet, this is hard to do due to limited data availability and sharing in open source. This paper provides the justification for, and overview of, the creation and dissemination of a Critical Infrastructure RansomWare (CIRW) dataset. It provides an overview of the CIRW dataset requesters and how they intend to use it. The paper also offers dataset changes over time based on self-assessments and community recommendations. The paper concludes by sharing the many benefits of maintaining an open dialog with the community and its recommendations in the hopes that it will inspire other researchers to take on new and innovative research agendas.