Ransomware viruses are one of the clearest ways for hackers to commercialize their efforts. Like pay-per-click campaigns, ransomware costs would-be victims relatively nothing, unlike those costs associated with the loss of data.Likewise, it's easy for hackers to spread their malware and hold data hostage, as evidenced by a massive digital extortion campaign that took down the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center for several days in late 2014.Ransomware is often delivered in the form of an innocuous-looking e-mail that purports to be from a colleague. As one study recently noted, the victims were actually at great risk because in many cases, their infection is attributed to an internal error, "suggesting that the entire enterprise was...
The hacker group DarkSide, allegedly behind the May 7 cyberattack on the American oil pipeline operator Colonial Pipeline, received a total of $ 90 million in cryptocurrency from its victims. Colonial Pipeline told the victims that a ransomware virus had been installed on their systems and encryption mechanisms had been activated. The hackers threatened to release and ransom users’ data to get the keys to the decryption. The hack affected the majority of the pipeline system’s assets, but none of the underground petroleum storage tanks were affected. The ransom could also have been paid in Bitcoin, which is used to the tune of $1,000 in one transaction, and three other altcoins. The attackers would have made $ 14 million for themselves...