Bloomberg Cyberattacks involving ransomware — in which criminals use malicious software to encrypt a users’ data and then extort money to unencrypt it — increased 50 percent in 2016, according to a report from Verizon Communications Inc. And criminals increasingly shifted from going after individual consumers to attacking vulnerable organizations and businesses, the report said. Government organizations were the …

  ABU DHABI / WAM With the inauguration of the high-tech jack-up rig Al Lulu, National Drilling Company (NDC), an Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) Group company, has celebrated the completion of its AED6 billion acquisition of nine state-of-the-art offshore rigs. The celebration, which took place in the Hamriyah Free Zone in Sharjah on Thursday, in the presence of …

  PARIS / Reuters OPEC wants oil inventories to decline further and is working to ensure a policy-setting meeting in May reaches consensus, the group’s secretary-general said on Thursday in comments pointing to an extension of a global supply cut. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and other producers originally agreed to curb production by 1.8 million barrels …