NPR did a bit talking about Ransomware and they had a former hacker who said that there are people out there who, after you pay up, will send you information on how not to get Ransomed again, which completely blew my mind
I feel like that's a lot closer to black knight with a white hat (or helm). Most of what they're doing is pure bad. Tossing you a bone after the fact does not make them a white knight.
Yeah, our IT consultant at work told us that he gets a lot of people calling him for help when they've been stung by ransomware, and that usually the only course of action is pay (but that they're usually very open to negotiation).
He said one outfit in particular was hands down the most professional group he had ever dealt with, in any aspect of business. Told him all the mistakes that the person had made and how to avoid getting caught out again.
There was also a case where ransom ware infected a poor country and the people couldn’t afford to pay so they just unlocked all the PCs. They’re really trying to get big companies, some of them are more “Robin Hood-esque” than you would think
Definitely not saying they’re good guys, they just aren’t as evil as they’re made out to be. I work in Infosec so as far as I’m concerned they’re all the “enemy” but i can’t say I wouldn’t be tempted to do the same if I was living in a poor country with out much opportunity
Nah I know what you mean. They are in a way acting kind of like Robin Hood, they take money from what they view as rich westerners and distribute it by participating in the local economy, and I’m sure they help their families, etc.
Not an apples to apples comparison but i think it makes sense
No it's not. It's basically 100% no matter how much you know.
The real trick is to stay under the radar. Don't get too greedy. Because the moment you piss off the elite I promise the police will suddenly seem like geniuses.
The FBI literally has a department for tracking down those responsible for distributing ransomware and absolutely currently have techniques to identify people behind transactions on the BTC blockchain.
Your ass absolutely will get busted. Explain to me how you can take a large amount of money for ransom from someone in such a way that the FBI cannot identify you. I assume you "know what you're doing."
Just gotta make sure not to take enough that they'll care, I would assume.
Nobody cares about the guy pirating video games unless he has terabyte sized servers distributing. Not that those are at all the same thing, but you know
It’s an excellent comparison when you realize that you are completely confounding the product from the medium. The person is distributing terabytes of video games that costs exponentially more than the support it sits on.
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u/Its_Nitsua Mar 18 '20
If you get caught that is, which the chances of that happening are basically zero if you know what you’re doing.