201–210 of 480 posts
I found it interesting none of these sites actually provided the alleged bitcoin wallet address. I found it @ https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/13nmJ3SsNB5pSyQrmX3e6...
For some context about CWT (I was curious about these figures) -- via Wikipedia[1]: * US$1.5 billion in revenue * 18k employees For a firm like this, the payment probably amounts to a small uptick in a small portion of their IT budget and won't even come close to hurting them (and, frankly, neither would the $10m figure). It's insane that this is the case and that companies are willing & able to pay ransoms like this…
I found it interesting none of these sites actually provided the alleged bitcoin wallet address. I found it @ https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/13nmJ3SsNB5pSyQrmX3e6...
a balance of 16m and over 1.4 trillon usd has passed through this account.
the oldest transaction i could find was 2019-11-02 14:19: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/17A16QmavnUfCW11DAApi...
Whilst paying the ransom is often advisable in specific cases like these, it’s absolutely a bad thing for society as a whole. Seeing successes like this will encourage organised crime to keep doing this, as they know there’s gonna be a big reward. It’s like the prisoners dilemma. If people didn’t pay the ransom, there wouldn’t be ransomware. But people don’t take precautions, so they have to pay the ransom, leading t…
The folks like this should actually do a startup. Hardening security is often just keeping up with and following checklists, installing proper monitoring, backup and audit software however for large majority of company it is impossible to hire competitive security specialists. These guys can scale up by hiring 100s of employees who they train on different aspects and contract with small firms like these at annual sub…
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The entire thing relies on several things: nearly always-on connectivity, ability to convert to USD, crummy UX, and legit cover. A ban would do serious harm to 2, 3 and 4. If no one could pay legitimately and it would become (ever more) difficult to launder, the ransomware demands would die. The first (connectivity) could be impacted as well. What would happen when traffic shaping makes sync take longer and when ever…
This isn’t a defense of Bitcoin. I’m often quite critical of cryptocurrency and believe the world would be better off without it. However, “banning” it won’t have the effects you’ve described, and you seem have some misunderstandings about how Bitcoin works, especially as it pertains to the criminal world. 1. Bitcoin transactions don’t require access to the internet at the time the transaction takes place. There have…
This would turn a 'trustless blockchain' to a 'non-blockchain relying on trust'. Assuming this transition can even be done (what would be the point of cryptocurrency in that case?), the result would be like the known hawala networks, which at least do not enable so much criminal activity and have some decent uses.
2,4. Bitcoin had an aura around it. Something experimental not really concerned with money or big crime, maybe a way to buy light drugs. Later on as a magnet for speculation. Remove the official cover, and laundering would become way more difficult.
3. There's terrible UX, and there's 'terrible horrible UX when one could easily lose money because the ISP closes your lightening connection'.
So I think this is possible to enforce, not completely, but there's no need for 100% enforcement to have a positive effect.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency_tumbler
What happens when crypto tumblers run away with the money
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500 unrelated accounts all deposit money into a single shared account. From that shared account, payments are made to 1,000 other accounts. None of the amounts match the original deposits, even when summed. Whose money is whose? This is an oversimplification, but it should give you a rough idea of how difficult it is to trace Bitcoin.
Authorities might already know mixers service providers and a subpoena will give them all info they need. Not sure tho, I haven't used bitcoin but there always be weak link somewhere
Granted, this is all theoretical. In practice, it’s not unusual for such people to make mistakes that reveal their identity; however, there’s nothing inherent to Bitcoin that ensures they can be de-anonymized.
Usually they attempt to go after hosting providers, but when the services are only accessible by Tor and they’re using bulletproof hosting—hosting providers who do their best to avoid law enforcement—that’s no easy feat. It’s not impossible, but it can be both a technical and diplomatic nightmare.
What are the chances this is a $4.5m transfer to North Korea?
Low. The hackers are likely European, since there are telltales like European number formatting ("10.000.000$") and awkward phrases like "make a step forward" (perhaps Italian fare un passo avanti ?).
Let this be a lesson to those that say bitcoin and other cryptocurrency has no real value outside of speculation. This kind of attack would be almost impossible in the pre-bitcoin era. The difficulty of receiving that volume of money in that short of a period of time in a difficult to trace manner is a new thing. We are entering a new era where crime can pay in very large sums with orders of magnitude less complexity…
>This kind of attack would be almost impossible in the pre-bitcoin era. Is it? VIPs are regularly held for ransom in unstable countries, so much so that ransom insurance is a thing[1]. If those ransoms can be safely received, why can't it be the case for ransomware ransoms? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnap_and_ransom_insurance
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is there a market for ransomware insurance?
If there were, the prices to unlock would skyrocket.... Unlike most kinds of insurance, the cost here is not a set thing.... It's arbitrary.