Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Governments turn tables on ransomware gang REvil by pushing it offline

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 94 posts

Re: Governments turn tables on ransomware gang REvil by pushing it offline

#71

Post by RNCTX »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #37
RNCTX wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. It's high comedy to me that 90+% of ransomware is targeted at Windows, and yet beyond the year 2020 you can still find corporate-speak in the wild that all basically boils down to a hare-brained assumption that the corporate vendor will in some way be liable if the customer suffers a breach. When in fact the largest of software vendors sits in plain sight, obviously liable for poor designs that invite these br…

What percent of ransomware on windows is driven by software vulnerabilities rather than careless users?

All of it, because Windows is closed source. A user cannot be responsible for a black box's contents.

Re: Governments turn tables on ransomware gang REvil by pushing it offline

#72

Post by BeFlatXIII »

nindalf wrote: post #40
spywaregorilla wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No those are not similar cases. Yours is urgent, violent, tiny scale, and individual level. The individual doesn't have any agency in this situation. The alternative is get shot and robbed. If a corporation is unable to pay a ransom then the incentive to do the ransomware attack immediately drops. Cracking down on perps would be nice, but is not feasible.

No. I can’t believe this needs to be explained, but the two situations are remarkably alike. If all of a corporations data is being held to ransom, there is no choice in the matter, they must pay. You’re talking like losing all their customers or IP or shutting down the corporation wouldn’t hurt anyone but it would hurt all their employees at the least. What such an idiotic, short sighted policy would do is to encour…

Then a bunch of employees will have to find new jobs and some people have their retirement savings drained because it was illegal to pay the ransom and the business shut down. Society will move on. No long-term loss.

Re: Governments turn tables on ransomware gang REvil by pushing it offline

#73

Post by 908B64B197 »

codegeek wrote: post #20
spywaregorilla wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stepping up enforcement fails all the time. If you want ransomware to stop being effective, make it illegal to pay the ransom.

That's like saying "make it illegal to get robbed". If I have a robber with a gun to my head asking for my wallet, I would comply. I wouldn't tell them sorry it is illegal to give you my wallet. You should not penalize the victim. Crack down on perps, not victims please.

Except in this case you can just... restore your wallet from back-up.

Pretty much the reason wallets are worthless is that if you snag one, all you get are plastic cards that are going to get cancelled in the next minutes/hours.

S3/Azure/Backblaze are really cheap and just work.

Re: Governments turn tables on ransomware gang REvil by pushing it offline

#75

Post by WalterBright »

gopher_space wrote: post #59
nindalf wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I can’t believe this needs to be explained, but the two situations are remarkably alike. If all of a corporations data is being held to ransom, there is no choice in the matter, they must pay. You’re talking like losing all their customers or IP or shutting down the corporation wouldn’t hurt anyone but it would hurt all their employees at the least. What such an idiotic, short sighted policy would do is to encour…

If "all" of your data is being held to ransom and that will tank your company then you are a bad businessperson and deserve whatever you get. Right now it's apparently cheaper to pay a ransom than it is to implement sane security and backup procedures. That needs to end.

I thought we were done with blaming the victim.

Re: Governments turn tables on ransomware gang REvil by pushing it offline

#77

Post by [deleted] »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #72
nindalf wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I can’t believe this needs to be explained, but the two situations are remarkably alike. If all of a corporations data is being held to ransom, there is no choice in the matter, they must pay. You’re talking like losing all their customers or IP or shutting down the corporation wouldn’t hurt anyone but it would hurt all their employees at the least. What such an idiotic, short sighted policy would do is to encour…

Then a bunch of employees will have to find new jobs and some people have their retirement savings drained because it was illegal to pay the ransom and the business shut down. Society will move on. No long-term loss.

[deleted]

Re: Governments turn tables on ransomware gang REvil by pushing it offline

#78

Post by Animats »

rich_sasha wrote: post #8

I hope this is a sign of things to come. Train robberies and privateering were common because the culprits were rarely caught. I feel ransomware has been so successful because it operated in an environment where you never get caught. The solution is always the same, step up the enforcement.

Train robberies and privateering were common because the culprits were rarely caught.

There's a delightful video, "The Barbary States - The Final Yarrs"[1] which shows the end of piracy in the Mediterranean. The European sea-going states and the United States had been paying tribute to the Barbary pirates to sail cargoes past Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean Sea. That video claims that tribute was the biggest single expense of the United States Government in its early years.

After the War of 1812, the United States had a moderately powerful navy. Congress decided to go to war against Algeria. Commodore Stephen Decatur was sent with a fleet. They won. Then the fleet went onto Tunis. They won. Then on to Tripoli. They won. The US paid no more tribute after that.

It got even worse for the Barbary pirates. The European powers now saw the pirates could be crushed. In 1816, the British and Dutch sent a fleet. Someone from the Algerian navy shot at it. The fleet shot back. Most of the Algerian navy was sunk. Eventually, France conquered and annexed Algeria, and Spain conquered Morocco.

For train robberies, see, of course, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The REvil crowd has managed to get to the point where the rather large US anti-terrorism community is focused on them. That usually doesn't end well.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSBmGaLt5OU

Re: Governments turn tables on ransomware gang REvil by pushing it offline

#79

Post by freedomben »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #72
nindalf wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I can’t believe this needs to be explained, but the two situations are remarkably alike. If all of a corporations data is being held to ransom, there is no choice in the matter, they must pay. You’re talking like losing all their customers or IP or shutting down the corporation wouldn’t hurt anyone but it would hurt all their employees at the least. What such an idiotic, short sighted policy would do is to encour…

Then a bunch of employees will have to find new jobs and some people have their retirement savings drained because it was illegal to pay the ransom and the business shut down. Society will move on. No long-term loss.

Dang man, that is amazingly cold.

Re: Governments turn tables on ransomware gang REvil by pushing it offline

#80

Post by arcticbull »

rich_sasha wrote: post #8

I hope this is a sign of things to come. Train robberies and privateering were common because the culprits were rarely caught. I feel ransomware has been so successful because it operated in an environment where you never get caught. The solution is always the same, step up the enforcement.

One thing we did before to solve this problem in the train robbery days was eliminating bearer instruments. I strongly suggest we revisit this solution.
Post reply on HN