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I thought this was a really interesting look at the commercial end of ransomware. Clearly shows that as an attack class it's not going anywhere for the time be

I thought this was a really interesting look at the commercial end of ransomware. Clearly shows that as an attack class it's not going anywhere for the time being and it'll just be a growing issue. With the amounts of money being made, you can also expect increasing sophistication as it'll make financial sense to invest. The comments about targeting companies with insurance were also interesting. I guess it's a smart way to make sure you get a guaranteed payout. But also I can see insurance rates going up and/or companies getting out of the market if they have to pay out too often.

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
paraphrasing Dave Aitel, think of ransomeware as just another form of DoS (internal instead of external). There is an under-appreciated value in ransomware that goes beyond commercial threat actors seeking "only" financial profit, and I think we'll see more targeted campaigns where primary motivation isn't a financial one, but extorting favors or other actionable intel from the data.
- raesene9 6y ago
  Yeah there's a suite of things that can come out of this (I think) as it's more commoditized. For me though the biggest part is the Security Vulnerability-->money pipeline. We know there are a load of vulnerabilities in software and bad configurations out there, what was lacking for attackers was a reliable way to turn that into money that they could get access to relatively untraceably, now they have that with a combination of ransomware and coins like Monero. It's like in traditional fraud, the thing stopping it happening more wasn't so much people's great controls, it was the difficulty for the fraudsters in moving the money into a part of the banking system that was less traceable (like cash).
monkeydreams 6y ago
> The comments about targeting companies with insurance were also interesting. I guess it's a smart way to make sure you get a guaranteed payout. But also I can see insurance rates going up and/or companies getting out of the market if they have to pay out too often. Insurance companies are often a mix of care and greed. I think a boutique insurance brokerage for ransomware might do very well if they drive changes in the client's operations through their exclusion clauses and fee structures. Find a bank or finance house willing to underwrite such an operation, perhaps with the possibility of a fat consultancy income stream to go along with it, and there is money to be made.

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago

paraphrasing Dave Aitel, think of ransomeware as just another form of DoS (internal instead of external). There is an under-appreciated value in ransomware that goes beyond commercial threat actors seeking "only" financial profit, and I think we'll see more targeted campaigns where primary motivation isn't a financial one, but extorting favors or other actionable intel from the data.

raesene9 6y ago
Yeah there's a suite of things that can come out of this (I think) as it's more commoditized. For me though the biggest part is the Security Vulnerability-->money pipeline. We know there are a load of vulnerabilities in software and bad configurations out there, what was lacking for attackers was a reliable way to turn that into money that they could get access to relatively untraceably, now they have that with a combination of ransomware and coins like Monero. It's like in traditional fraud, the thing stopping it happening more wasn't so much people's great controls, it was the difficulty for the fraudsters in moving the money into a part of the banking system that was less traceable (like cash).

monkeydreams 6y ago

> The comments about targeting companies with insurance were also interesting. I guess it's a smart way to make sure you get a guaranteed payout. But also I can see insurance rates going up and/or companies getting out of the market if they have to pay out too often. Insurance companies are often a mix of care and greed. I think a boutique insurance brokerage for ransomware might do very well if they drive changes in the client's operations through their exclusion clauses and fee structures. Find a bank or finance house willing to underwrite such an operation, perhaps with the possibility of a fat consultancy income stream to go along with it, and there is money to be made.