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It should be pointed out these are affiliates, not actual members. Later down article mentions the bounty for actual REvil leadership members. This is what ma
by snapetom 5y ago
It should be pointed out these are affiliates, not actual members. Later down article mentions the bounty for actual REvil leadership members.
This is what makes Ransomware as a Service so dangerous. It's basically franchising. The actual REvil gang gets to outsource the arrest risk to a third party and still gets paid billions.
- grayfaced 5y agoAnd the real leadership likely sees the affiliates as a threat. Someone that can never learn any damning details about the leadership identities.
- ackbar03 5y agoI'm pretty sure they pretty much know who the top brass are by now. Just not much they can do about it
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- fnord77 5y agoso what can the actual members be charged with? conspiracy or RICO?
- jcranmer 5y agoConspiracy is very probably a viable charge. RICO is quite dicey--the main charges in these indictments are 18 USC §1030 charges, which do not qualify as predicate acts for RICO charges. But the 18 USC §1956 charge (i.e., money laundering) does qualify, although the fact that there's only one count in these indictments means it's going to be harder to describe the necessary pattern for RICO. If it does, then I believe the other elements of 18 USC §1962(c) could be straightforwardly shown. (In particular, the defendant and the enterprise are clearly different). But IANAL, and the details here can be incredibly convoluted, so make of that what you will.
- LogonType10 5y agoRussian hacking gangs are putting silicon valley entrepeneurs to shame. They've made every element of ransomware something that can be specialized in and outsourced. Initial access? Ransomware? C2 infrastructure? Negotiation? Customer service? It can all be outsourced to a Russian company that specializes in their niche. Everyone is scrambling to build a cyber army. Looks like Putin is letting the invisible hand build it for him.
- rectang 5y ago"Silicon valley entrepreneurs" are doing business in a war zone. The general security situation is fraught because multiple nation states are at least sheltering and sometimes sponsoring attackers who damage the economy of the opponent.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- caf 5y agoModern-day privateers?
- LogonType10 5y agoDespite what narcissistic Zero-to-Oners would tell you, their startups aren't important in the grand scheme of things. Nation states are hacking intelligence agencies, governments, established IT vendors (not startups), power grids, and hospitals in that rough order. Ransomware gangs are hacking companies that have real money right now, not lottery tickets pre-IPO. These companies can afford good cybersecurity but don't want to spend more money than the damages they would incur from a successful attack.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- AmericanChopper 5y ago> Ransomware gangs are hacking companies that have real money right now, not lottery tickets pre-IPO Funded startups have a lot of money. Milking money out of startups is a highly profitable market segment. Why would ransom gangs not want to get in on that? They don’t tend to ask for the ransom to be paid in ISOs…
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Thorrez 5y agoHow is the REvil gang outsourcing the risk? Aren't the things they're doing just as high-risk as the things the affiliates are doing?
- tjpnz 5y agoYour affiliate might be able to make a deal with a judge in exchange for you. How confident are the ringleaders in their anonymity?
- Thorrez 5y agoYep. And the affiliates might be government agents. Both ringleaders and affiliates need to take anonymity measures, so they seem equally vulnerable to me.
- snapetom 5y agoProblem is this isn't exactly like a street meeting between mafia thugs in New York in the 60's. There's no face to face contact for cops to monitor. There's no wires to record voices and tie into identities. Sure, there's meetings, but they're online and can be anonymized. Of course, it's not 100%, but it's a higher chance of success than say, wiretapping a phone.
- Thorrez 5y agoAll of those apply to both the affiliates and the ringleaders. Also, wiretapping a phone only captures future calls. A warrant against a website, or the website's hosting provider can provide message history, assuming it's not E2E encrypted. And it could even get the message history of every single user in one go if the site is e.g. hacked, or if there's a broad warrant against a crime website's hosting provider. We can see from this article that tons of these criminal websites get hacked, and then people like Brian Krebs can investigate the leaked databases to see info about the criminals' accounts.
- snapetom 5y ago
- skim_milk 5y agoLots of organized crime operates in some way like this, it's a pretty successful system!
- OneTimePetes 5y agoIncluding inner city drug gangs. The kingpins basically just hand out a franchise "package" to a corner, selling the equipment and method, training and often even fashion statements.
- netizen-936824 5y agoCan you please cite a reference for this concept? I'm interested in learning more and I'd like to read some verified information about how they operate
- newsclues 5y agoWatch the wire
- ben_w 5y agoFiction isn’t evidence
- JetSpiegel 5y agoIt's the opposite, it might be hyperreal. More real than reality.
- VHRanger 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_Leader_for_a_Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_Leader_for_a_Day Also: a McDonalds job is better than being a street corner dealer
- gurjeet 5y agoThe TED tak “ The freakonomics of crack dealing” might interest you. > What I'm going to tell you today is that, in fact, based on 10 years of research, a unique opportunity to go inside a gang -- to see the actual books, the financial records of the gang -- that the answer turns out not to be that being in the gang was a glamorous life. But I think, more realistically, that being in a gang -- selling drugs for a gang -- is perhaps the worst job in all of America. And that's what I'd like to convince you of today. https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_the_freakonomics_of_crack_dealing/transcript?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_the_freakonomics_of_...
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y agoThis is somewhat analogous to how regular corporations operate: the majority of the risk lies not with the people making most of the money, probably even more so when white collar crime is involved.
- skim_milk 5y agoThe thing I like about corporate law is that, unlike how organized crime usually works with the lowest members of the hierarchy getting charged and dealing the consequences of their actions that their bosses forced them to take, it's the shareholders taking responsibility (corporate fines) for the lowest members' actions. Corporate law forces shareholders to optimize their system and corporate hierarchy to disincentivize doing illegal things. As opposed to organized crime, which does the opposite; the mob bosses organize their system and hierarchy to incentivize doing illegal things because this gets the mob bosses money. Man, I could rant for hours about how much I viscerally despise the unintelligent internet commentators that talk down on corporate law. Without corporate law (the only thing holding shareholders responsible for the actions of their employees), all we get is unaccountability and organized crime!
- 1cvmask 5y agoThe Mafia was a hierarchical franchise system. There would be gunfights when one mafia franchisee would encroach on another franchisees turf.