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I bet the malware author is really regretting not translating the ransom note and payment instructions into multiple languages now. EDIT: Sorry, my mistake. It
by desdiv 9y ago
I bet the malware author is really regretting not translating the ransom note and payment instructions into multiple languages now.
EDIT: Sorry, my mistake. It's already in 28 languages, like the posters below pointed out. I only ever saw the English screenshot and made the incorrect assumption.
- redthrowaway 9y agoi18n from the get-go, ladies and gents. Don't be this guy, leaving millions on the table.
- Animats 9y agoFew people are paying up. The Bitcoin transactions are logged.[1] Current total is US$60K. [1] https://whitesunset.github.io/wannacrypt_balance/ https://whitesunset.github.io/wannacrypt_balance/
- sillysaurus3 9y agoWow, I calculated $40k a day ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14339002 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14339002). It's growing pretty quickly.
- baxtr 9y agoThat's not really a lot of money compared to the risk he/she is running...
- MichaelGG 9y ago$60K so far, and a lot of people are still probably figuring out how to get Bitcoin. If they had reasonable opsec in making/distributing it and act a bit careful in cashing out the coins they're probably OK. If they end up collecting $200K or so, and Bitcoin continues to go up and they live in a cheap country ... could be well worth it.
- cm2187 9y agoThey only get to live if the FSB isn't after them.
- mastax 9y agoFor some perspective, CryptoWall made over $300mm in it's first year [0] and CryptoLocker made $30mm in 100 days [1]. [0] http://thehackernews.com/2015/10/cryptowall-ransomware.html http://thehackernews.com/2015/10/cryptowall-ransomware.html [1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/2082204/crime-pays-very-well-cryptolocker-grosses-up-to-30-million-in-ransom.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2082204/crime-pays-very-well-...
- ufo 9y agoWhy are these orders of magnitude more profitable than WannaCrypt? More computers infected? Bigger percentage of targets paying the ransom? Larger ransom amounts? Something else?
- matthewbauer 9y agoI've read that even after paying you don't get your files back. Might just be buggy software.
- pcr0 9y agoIt seems they accepted alternate methods of payment aside from BTC, which suggests technical difficulties in acquiring BTC.
- celticninja 9y agoPeople have started taking better backups, now they have the option to restore, plus it's too big, the UK government is never going to pay $300 per computer when you may have 10,000 computers locked up. When you get a small firm with 5 pcs and the cost is $1500 it's a cheap lesson so you pay up.
- tudorconstantin 9y agoIsn't the decryption key the same? You pay once and are able to devrypt all the 10k computers?
- 9y ago
- spatulon 9y agoIt's also not clear how the attackers will be able to launder the Bitcoin, given how many eyes are now on those addresses.
- Animats 9y agoThe attackers can run their bitcoins through a "bitcoin mixer". But those mixers may have been penetrated by an intelligence agency. It doesn't matter which one; all the major powers are annoyed with this attacker.
- jessaustin 9y agoYeah we can just imagine the scene in a movie: dude lives like a poor hermit for five years, carefully mixing those BTC, and then when he flies to Vietnam and buys a nice boat, drives a few miles offshore, then he finds a pissed-off assassin who kills him in some painful fashion just for "being an asshole for taking so long to surface".
- sushid 9y agoThey can easily tumble them using various services and buy Monero with it.
- fizixer 9y agoWait, so does that mean we can follow the money? (find out who converts those specific bitcoins to a physical currency?)
- jobigoud 9y agoIt's hard though, there are money laundering techniques that split the coins into thousands of small packages and tumble the bad coins with good ones.
- Animats 9y agoNow up to $71K.
- revelation 9y agoBut he did? I think there were 28 RTFs for different languages..
- edkennedy 9y agoAccording to wikipedia it was translated into 28 languages.
- tyingq 9y agoThey did though. See screenshot with the language pulldown: https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--mLMZ86wS--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/u5ecpcfiltnjxnfa0k7g.jpg https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--mLMZ86w...