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Let's be honest. There's only one way this ends. You have vigilante ransomware dudes who promise to decrypt the ransomed stuff and then abscond with the money.
by scarejunba 7y ago
Let's be honest. There's only one way this ends. You have vigilante ransomware dudes who promise to decrypt the ransomed stuff and then abscond with the money. Poison the well and people will just assume they've lost the data.
- swombat 7y agoThat actually would probably work... especially if the vigilantes masqueraded as the “genuine” hackers convincingly. Then you (or the companies covered in TFA) would just have no way of knowing whether there is any chance of recovering the data for real. As the probability of recovery goes down, the likelihood of being willing to pay the ransom also goes down. Though in a way this feels a bit like going around _actually shooting_ people in order to “poison the well” for a group that goes around _threatening to shoot_ people, but not actually shooting them if they pay up.
- jacobush 7y agoYes, and also with the guys not actually shooting if you pay working hard on establishing a brand everyone can "trust". They could for instance sign their releases of malware so it couldn't easily be spoofed by the proposed vigilantes.
- prirun 7y agoAnother option would be to hire a data security firm to do ongoing penetration testing at your business, perhaps even to the point of supplying employee email addresses. Then if the business is penetrated by the security firm, they can give notifications of what needs to change, who needs to be educated about clicking on email links, etc.