4 ms·
> To be honest, just how bad of a thing is this? It’s a direct financial punishment for a company with lax security practices. It encourages greater security pr
by benlumen 6y ago
> To be honest, just how bad of a thing is this? It’s a direct financial punishment for a company with lax security practices. It encourages greater security practices.
I see your point but this is flat-out organized crime, extortion to be precise. How long will it be before we're all making protection payments to ransomware groups?
- markdown 6y agoWhat makes crime "organised"? There's no indication that this involved more than one thief.
- stagger87 6y agoOrganized crime has a specific meaning. Whether this particular outfit is one or more people has no bearing on the use of the term organized crime in this instance.
- markdown 6y agoI asked: > What makes crime "organised"? Your answer is: > Organized crime has a specific meaning Well... what is it?
- stagger87 6y agoSorry, I didn't think you might not be able to search for it. Here's a link. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organized_crime https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organized_crime
- markdown 6y agoThe link says you're wrong, and that in fact you can't have organised crime without at least two people.
- usrusr 6y agoA difference to physical "protection" schemes is that the group you'd pay to might actually keep other groups out of what they consider their turf. Ransomware attacks are not geographically bound so I really doubt that similar structures would develop there. With growing numbers of ransomers demands just wouldn't stop until either the company runs out if money or security gets good enough to keep them out.
- benlumen 6y agoGood point, not a great analogy. My sentiment was the risk of this becoming normalized and even formalized. When I was (a lot) younger, I had a pet theory that the anti-virus companies were making the viruses and that it was a sort of protection racket.