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posted by martyb on Sunday July 30 2017, @08:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the also-sits-and-plays-dead dept.

Cyber-thieves have made at least $25m (£19m) from ransomware in the last two years, suggests research by Google.

The search giant created thousands of virtual victims of ransomware to expose the payment ecosystem surrounding the malware type.

Most of the money was made in 2016 as gangs realised how lucrative it was, revealed a talk at Black Hat.

Two types of ransomware made most of the money, it said, but other variants are starting to emerge.

"It's become a very, very profitable market and is here to stay," said Elie Bursztein from Google who, along with colleagues Kylie McRoberts and Luca Invernizzi, carried out the research.
...
Mr Bursztein said Google used several different methods to work out how much cash was flowing towards ransomware creators.
...
The research project also revealed where the cash flowed and accumulated in the Bitcoin network and where it was converted back into cash. More than 95% of Bitcoin payments for ransomware were cashed out via Russia's BTC-e exchange, found Google.


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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @11:49AM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @11:49AM (#546646)

    You did include this in you TCO calculations, didn't you?

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  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday July 30 2017, @01:48PM (7 children)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Sunday July 30 2017, @01:48PM (#546673) Journal

    Since those ransomware programs usually require user interaction to install, dumb Linux users would be just as vulnerable as dumb Windows users. Also note that the better permission system won't help either, as usually the files you care about are under the very same user account you are browsing on.

    The key strategy against ransomware is making backups. If the ransomware attacks, you just wipe and restore from backup. This works equally well under Windows and Linux.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @09:22PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @09:22PM (#546831)

      While it would take years to a couple decades to really see an effect, at this point of time I really think they should add a required class or two about computer security in school. It's something virtually everyone would have to deal with in their lives now. (either from a full blown PC or just to their fancy phones)

      Would it fix the problem? No, but it would at least insure more people had the basic smarts to not click on fucking links emailed to them by strangers.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Nuke on Sunday July 30 2017, @09:47PM (2 children)

        by Nuke (3162) on Sunday July 30 2017, @09:47PM (#546844)

        at least insure more people had the basic smarts to not click on fucking links emailed to them by strangers

        Trouble is that if you get an email purporting to be from, say, a parcel delivery or your electricity supply company, they are not really "strangers".

        • (Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday July 30 2017, @11:22PM (1 child)

          by anubi (2828) on Sunday July 30 2017, @11:22PM (#546886) Journal

          Clicking on a link should be only capable of retrieving information. Nothing more.

          Yes, you should be able to retrieve an executable, also being required to complete a dialogue to run it.

          No one should have their machine executing arbitrary code from the net.

          Yet, modern browsers do just that until they have been deliberately crippled with script blockers

          --
          "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
          • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday July 31 2017, @03:33AM

            by frojack (1554) on Monday July 31 2017, @03:33AM (#546959) Journal

            It used to be that I would only surf the web on Linux.
            Then I would read email only Linux.

            There's less and less I'm willimg to do on Windows, even though some aspects of my job still require it.

            --
            No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday July 30 2017, @09:41PM

      by Nuke (3162) on Sunday July 30 2017, @09:41PM (#546839)

      Since those ransomware programs usually require user interaction to install, dumb Linux users would be just as vulnerable as dumb Windows users.

      Maybe, but I don't care until and unless some ransomware is written for Linux. That is fairly unlikely, partly because the crooks know that Linux users are generally more technically savvy, and partly for the same reason that there is no Photoshop for Linux. I backup anyway, which supports my first point.

      So it remains a Windows problem for the forseeable future, and it should indeed be added to the Windows TCO, Having said that, the average cost of ransomeware is very small; I am surprised that the crooks made only $25 million.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @11:36AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @11:36AM (#547097)

      Also note that the better permission system won't help

      But the better software distribution model does: one will usually not install a random application from teh intarwebz but via their package manager.

      • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday July 31 2017, @05:34PM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday July 31 2017, @05:34PM (#547260) Journal

        Who says you have to install the ransomware? A shell script that uses GnuPG to actually encrypt the files should be entirely sufficient. Just trick the user into executing it. Bonus points if it also adds itself into .bashrc so it can continue its "work" the next time you login.

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.