9 ms·
Good comment. I've interacted with ransomware scammers on several occasions. Each time I couldn't help but be impressed by their operations. In one case, the s
by dsacco 10y ago
Good comment.
I've interacted with ransomware scammers on several occasions. Each time I couldn't help but be impressed by their operations. In one case, the scammers provided an email address for customer support once the victim paid the ransom. They were courteous, helpful and professional - more so than many customer response teams I've had to interact with in legitimate companies.
To be clear, I also don't recommend paying the ransom, but the work is often impressive.
- notahacker 10y agoTo be fair, I think legitimate companies' customer support might be a bit more courteous and attentive if they personally stood to gain $500 from each dissatisfied person contacting them...
- dsacco 10y agoOh yes, of course. Without question the superior customer support is a selfish incentive. But I still find it incredibly interesting.
- cpayne 10y agoI agree. There has to be an MBA case study in there somewhere. As others have said, they clearly is it as a profit centre (not cost centre).
- bigiain 10y agoHmmm, thinks back to some of the support contracts I've been involved with (or heard about from trusted friends) with "big 4 consulting firms" or "enterprise IT partners". Nope, doesn't check out.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoIt does. Regular customer support is on wage/salary, and otherwise have zero economical interest in helping people. Also, they're considered cost centre, which doesn't help. Think of criminals doing ransomware as if it was a small startup, for which profits are strongly dependent on reputation, and where your "customer support" is actually handled by the founders themselves. They have every reason to help, because it literally keeps their business model alive.
- dwightgunning 10y agoIt's more like a part of a post-sales than customer support (a cost centre).
- trprog 10y agoAlthough in this case they may be trying to reduce the volume of people who get the police involved. If they are pleasant to deal with throughout that seems likely to diminish people's enthusiasm for demanding legal consequences for the perpetrators.
- abecedarius 10y agoReminds me of http://www.tau.ac.il/~algazi/mat/Goffman--Cooling.htm http://www.tau.ac.il/~algazi/mat/Goffman--Cooling.htm from pre-internet times.
- dwightgunning 10y agoIt's more like a part of a post-sales than customer support (a cost centre).
- XaYdEk 10y agoAh, reality is an infinite source of irony.
- IgorPartola 10y agoY'all make this all sound so appealing.
- handedness 10y agoStockholm Syndrome exists for good reason.