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I think in this case there's enough blackhats in this world that do this for fun. Don't think cryptocurrency changes anything.

• mehrdadn 6y ago
  You don't have to "think" whether it "changes anything". You just have to observe that yes, in fact these problems did not occur on such a scale before cryptocurrencies came along, and given their obvious role in the process, Occam's razor would suggest they do change things unless proven otherwise. At which point one would want to examine the problem more deeply, which thankfully others have and which you can Google, to see exactly what role cryptocurrencies play. For example you might want to read: https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-role-of-cryptocurrencies-in-the-rise-of-ransomware https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-role-of-cryptocurrencies-...
  • SCHiM 6y ago
    What you say is untrue. Black hats have done things on this scale for as long as this scale has existed. RATs, malware, spam, ransomware, scareware, worms, all this existed in the largest scale possible before the advent of crypto currency. Doxing, messing with people, leaking sensitive files, pictures and other media, has existed on massive scale before crypto currencies. It's the scale of the internet itself, and the amount of money involved, and the fragility of connected systems, that has lead to the increase. I'll grant that cryptocurrency adds even more of this badness. It's definitively increased the number of bad actors. But this is not the driving cause. Their 'obvious role' is only a role for some actors. Not everyone is financially motivated. It's also easily measurable, the revenue of a ransomware-as-a-service group (this exists) is an easy jaw-dropping number to display. But that number does not capture the damage done by actors not financially motivated. Hell _the_ largest and _most_ devastating attack ever was not financially motivated at all. I'm of course talking about NotPetya. Whose damage and impact easily dwarfs that of the financially motivated ransomware groups.