Pay us bitcoin or never see your files again: Inside the highly profitable underworld of ransomware
In wake of an attack on computers at Colorado’s DOT, experts at Webroot shed light on ransomware
- Tamara Chuang for Denver Post March 4th, 2018
- Source: {short_url}
The article refers to research by Damon McCoy, professor of computer science and engineering at NYU Tandon.
… Hackers use ransomware to encrypt computer files, making them unreadable without a secret key, and then demand digital currency like bitcoin if victims want the files back — and many victims are falling for that promise. … Ransomware infects more than 100,000 computers around the world every day. … A study by researchers at Google, Chainalysis, University of California San Diego and NYU Tandon School of Engineering estimated that from 2016 to mid 2017, victims paid $25 million in ransom to get files back.
