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I actually laughed out loud reading this, These guys are giving ransomware a bad name , ahahaha, what?!
I read it as more of a “they’ve ruined it for the rest of us” whinge.
Tragedy of the commons? Sort of? Not really?
> The REvil representative said its program was introducing new restrictions on the kinds of organizations that affiliates could hold for ransom, and that henceforth it would be forbidden to attack those in the “social sector” (defined as healthcare and educational institutions) and organizations in the “gov-sector” (state) of any country. Affiliates also will be required to get approval before infecting victims. Sta…
Almost all crime syndicates work this way. There is a balancing point where the crime you do does enough damage to make you money, but not so much money that the government dedicates elites to come knocking on your door. What DarkSide did was veer too far in the wrong direction.
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How does the scam work ? You got me curious...
Ball gets placed under one of three cups. Cups get mixed around and people guess where the ball is for money. The ball isn’t under any of them though. The scammer palmed it.
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There is billions of dollars of value in BTC sitting in wallets as an open bounty for anyone who can hack private keys. So which of the following is most likely: - the government has a tool that can break private key encryption and used it to confiscate a hacker groups funds OR - whoever controls the groups wallet transferred it out and is on the run
OR Someone got a little sloppy on their payment processing server (also seized) or with maintaining separate wallets and control of that server allowed sending of payments to an account specified by whoever was in control - likely since the server was for paying affiliates.
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Its been said before: "When the system fails you, you create your own system." Which relates to what you're saying. When clever, intelligent people are ostracized and marginalized, they then use those skills to get illegally what society has prevented them from getting legally. At some point, the idea of getting caught doesn't even register anymore.
Were these people ostracized and marginalized? If we just paid engineers more would this type of crime disappear? Or is greed, ego, arrogance also a part of their actions?
We probably will never know. A lot of hackers turn to hacking because of various reasons - some ideological, others because they felt they didn't fit in anywhere else.
>> If we just paid engineers more would this type of crime disappear?
Probably not. You cannot get rid of one type of crime by simply paying people NOT to do it. It is what is - at no time in human history has any civilization had zero crime. That's regardless of punishments and financial incentives.
>> Or is greed, ego, arrogance also a part of their actions?
I think its different things at different times. When I was hacking, it was arrogance, thinking I was smarter than others and trying to prove it. That leads to thinking you are beyond law enforcement when you get away with it (ego). If you're into it solely for financial gain, then the other two feed your greed. Get one nice payout for your ransomware and now you think its easy to do and you'll never be caught - increasing your greed to get more.
They all kind of play into each other:
arrogance: "I'll never get caught."
ego: "They'll never catch me, my ops sec is too good for law enforcement."
greed: "This was too easy, next time I'll target a bigger company for a bigger payout."
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On the high seas of the Internet there is a thin line between pirates and state actors. There could even be "privateer" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privateer ) attackers who work for a nation and for profit at the same time. From the victim's perspective it matters less who is attacking you or why they are attacking you and much more what the results of the attack are, how you can mitigate and recover from the da…
Just causing terror doesn't make it terrorism. Causing terror as a means to further some political (or religious) goal would make it terrorism.
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> seem to point to ransomware activities being far more coordinated and "business-like" than they often get credit for. This is a business that actually provides better support than a regular business. From conversations with friends in the Infragard side of this, and the agencies that collaborate, they have 24/7 English support available before and after payment, as well as decryption remote support if you can't get…
> This is a business that actually provides better support than a regular business. The thing I find fascinating from a sociology perspective about ransomware is that they have to. To be a successful ransomware company, you have to simultaneously be: 1. Completely immoral enough to attack companies, hold their data ransom and potentially put them out of business and reveal the private details of thousands of people.…
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You could even send ETH to the Secret Network and perform token swaps and then send it back to a clean address.
Yes, even better because the smart contract execution is private and all the variables (receiver, quantity) are only temporarily stored with the validator’s SGX chips and not onchain. Less liquidity there, for now. Meaning the exits would more likely be the same beneficial owner, but definitely an additional route for liquidity. Similarly, I think there should be a version of Tornado.cash that stores notes in SGX and…
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Critical Infrastructure as Govt defines it https://www.cisa.gov/critical-infrastructure-sectors
I'm not sure what point this comment is trying to make, according to CISA emergency services are a critical infrastructure sector. Therefore attacks on hospitals are attacks on critical infrastructure just like a pipeline.
Five distinct disciplines compose the ESS, encompassing a wide range of emergency response functions and roles:
* Fire and Rescue Services
* Emergency Medical Services
* Emergency Management
* Public Works
Emergency Medical Services ≠ Hospital
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Just causing terror doesn't make it terrorism. Causing terror as a means to further some political (or religious) goal would make it terrorism.
With that definition this is explicitly not terrorism, because it was for money not for political or religious reasons?