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US travel firm $4.5M ransom negotiation open chat

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Re: US travel firm $4.5M ransom negotiation open chat

#251

Post by spurdoman77 »

vmception wrote: post #238
yyyk wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.... Instead democratizing currency, we're democratizing large scale crime. Just wanted to make this same point - right now, cryptocurrency has negative value for society. Perhaps this is a justification for banning the current impleme…

Bug bounties rising to their actual market price is not a negative value for society.

Market price? Interesting way to put it. You could say that the ransomware issuer has a monopoly to the data and will price it to the level where the company owners have higher return paying and continuing it than closing the company down.

Re: US travel firm $4.5M ransom negotiation open chat

#253

Post by yyyk »

swader999 wrote: post #233
yyyk wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing that, but I am not familiar with any data that shows actual widespread use by common people* in those countries without a functional currency. Most of these countries barely have a stable internet connection or even stable electrical power, so I wouldn't surprised if these 'currencies' aren't so helpful in practice. * Note that use by corrupt politicians to launder their ill-gotten gains is not a posit…

Cypress in 2013, Venezuela currently.

Cyprus currency is the Euro, hardly a bad local currency as far as value is concerned, and the local residents are already adept in keeping funds in other currencies. Historically, Bitcoin had little marketshare there and made no difference. Are there any evidence of large scale use in Venezuela?

Re: US travel firm $4.5M ransom negotiation open chat

#254

Post by gruez »

bitcoinmoney wrote: post #240
gruez wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine you'd get caught on the off-ramps, since you'd most certainly be reported (by the exchange and/or your bank) to FinCEN. At that point you'd have to contend with the "the money came from bags of cash that just landed in my back yard" problem if federal agents come knocking. As for whether the federal agents will show up at all, I'm not sure. There probably aren't too many criminals who would openly admit tha…

Would fincen show up in Russia? And tumblers can hide the source easily. 4m$ is a lot to clean but it’s not impossible.

I was assuming a US-centric view. If it's russia (or any other lax country), all bets are off as you've said.

Re: US travel firm $4.5M ransom negotiation open chat

#255

Post by canada_dry »

projektfu wrote: post #188
throwaway28848 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When work for a big IT team at a company that's already invested a fortune in on-prem storage and your job depends on pre-cloud procedures, you keep your mouth closed and do what's asked of you. After all, if the company gets hacked, it's usually just the CISO that gets fired. Not you. You made a very good point about Windows GPOs. The delivery mechanism for them vs. how macOS does it shows how dated of a paradigm th…

Scenario 1: Keep head down, company gets attacked, shrug shoulders. Scenario 2: Sell solid security and backup principles to management, fighting annoying budget and corporate culture battles along the way. Company does not get attacked. Nobody notices. Scenario 3: Quietly set up an immutable backup service with hourly backups for your enterprise without anyone really noticing. Company gets attacked. "Actually, we do…

> backup service with hourly backups for your enterprise without anyone really noticing

Well, except this is similar to #2 as it will likely stand out in the budget - especially the initial setup. IT being a cost centre has to fight for every penny in most non-IT-centric organizations.

Plus, the hackers will still threaten to release your corporate data (i.e. emails, client info) which would compel most companies to pay-up.

Bottom line: every company needs good backups, intrusion detection, and system hardening (with 3rd party review).

Re: US travel firm $4.5M ransom negotiation open chat

#256

Post by istjohn »

vmception wrote: post #238
yyyk wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.... Instead democratizing currency, we're democratizing large scale crime. Just wanted to make this same point - right now, cryptocurrency has negative value for society. Perhaps this is a justification for banning the current impleme…

Bug bounties rising to their actual market price is not a negative value for society.

By your logic, bank robbers are simply a manifestation of market forces. What did you expect to happen with all that cash in one place with no armed guards?

Re: US travel firm $4.5M ransom negotiation open chat

#257

Post by vmception »

seebetter wrote: post #115
momokoko wrote: post #92

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…

Something like 95%+ of bitcoin is related to financial speculation, investing, DeFi etc etc. An order of magnitude of more drugs are sold on Cash App and Venmo -- which is why they're in rap songs. As for large scale hacking, extortion and ransom, yes bitcoin is used but it is increasing difficult to cash out in a large way.

> bitcoin is used but it is increasing difficult to cash out in a large way.

But its not? You can convert 50 million usd worth of bitcoin in one order without moving the market more than 1-1.5% and have a wire transfer to your bank account same day. This happens all day every day, with the markets getting deeper year by year.

Trash exchanges for retail have nothing to do with the infrastructure actually out there. If you are moving anything over 4 figures you shouldn't be trying to use retail exchanges. They're trash, slower, randomly flag stuff, and have higher fees.

Re: US travel firm $4.5M ransom negotiation open chat

#258

Post by darksaints »

momokoko wrote: post #92

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…

I've got a friend who does red team work as a CIA contractor for both terrorism smuggling and drug/human smuggling operations. And at least based off of conversations with him, crypto currency isn't quite the win that you're portraying. If you're in any country where it can be converted to cash, you're also in a country where it still needs to be laundered. And that means that no matter how quickly the transaction took place, converting to cash is gonna be a long haul, and it gets riskier the longer the haul.

The one area where he claims it is an enabler is as a medium of exchange between criminal organizations. It's easier to transfer large quantities of currency and easier/cheaper to verify validity, than the traditional method of brokers and illicit escrows (nothing like the briefcase handoffs you see on TV).

But those same qualities that enable those types of transfers also enable transnational transfers of currency between nations that do not have agreed on standardized electronic methods. And I'd view that as an overall win. I'm also of the opinion that on a slow and steady long haul, cryptocurrencies will eventually take over the role of the US dollar as a trading base currency. Which would also be a win in my opinion, with respect to geopolitics.

Re: US travel firm $4.5M ransom negotiation open chat

#259

Post by malikNF »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #249
malikNF wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>democratizing large scale crime Ah give me a break, I am having a very hard time wrapping my mind around this obsession HN has for hating cryptocurrencies and blockchains. Solution to everything is to ban things we don't like, also while we are at it, lets ban credit cards too, credit-card fraud is close to 30Billion world wide[1]. People tend to focus on the bad about technology instead of all the good it can brin…

The difference is people talking about real problems and people making things up. It's an incredibly significant difference.

I am sorry I am not sure I understand you properly. What do you mean ?

Re: US travel firm $4.5M ransom negotiation open chat

#260

Post by vmception »

istjohn wrote: post #256
vmception wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bug bounties rising to their actual market price is not a negative value for society.

By your logic, bank robbers are simply a manifestation of market forces. What did you expect to happen with all that cash in one place with no armed guards?

That analogy only works if banks were paying people to pretend to rob them all day every day and show them how they did it, and also underpaying them.

so, no.

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