Cyber Criminals' Earnings Fall As More Ransom Victims Refuse Payment

Uploaded on 2023-02-20 in TECHNOLOGY--Hackers, NEWS-News Analysis, GOVERNMENT-Law Enforcement, FREE TO VIEW

Cyber criminals have experienced a 40% drop in their theft earnings as victims refuse to pay the criminals the ransom demanded and crypto currency experts at Chainalysis say ransomware groups extorted at least $457m (£370m) from victims in 2022, which is $311m less than the year before.

The true figures are likely to be higher as many refuse to admit they are paying ransom fees, but experts still agree that fewer victims are paying the ransom money being asked for. However, while there has been a drop in criminal revenue, the number of attacks is still rising.

Following sharp law enforcement action against the DarkSide and Conti ransomware groups, some hacking criminal operations have changed their methods and seem to have become cautious about getting involved in the sort high profile attacks that could lead to increased geopolitical pressure and attention from law enforcement agencies.

Many of the ransomware criminals are thought to be based in Russia - althoughRussian government sources consistently deny their country is a haven for hackers.

Recent high-profile victims has included The Guardian newspaper, the Royal Mail delivery company and a number of British schools. Companies, governments, schools and even hospitals around the world are regularly falling victim to ransomware hackers, who lock staff out of their IT systems until a ransom is paid, usually in Bitcoin.

Ransomware attacks prevent victims accessing computer systems or data until a ransom is paid it is said, however police agencies around the world are increasingly urging victims not to pay.

The hackers often threaten to publish or sell the stolen data unless they are paid in Bitcoin and the analysts at Chainalysis have been tracking the money flowing in and out of Bitcoin wallets which are known to be owned by ransomware gangs and they say there is clear trend - ransomware payments are significantly down.

Criminals now seem to be carrying out a greater number of smaller attacks instead of going after large targets, where large payments are more likely.

Despite the drop in revenue, the number of unique ransomware strains being used in attacks reportedly increased dramatically in 2022. Research from Fortinet has found that more than 10,000 unique types of the malicious software were active in the first half of 2022. The growth in the number of attacks last year could be connected with enforcement actions, mainly by the US authorities, which caused some of the largest ransomware groups to disband.

Paying ransoms is not illegal and many organisations pay in secret, however, paying the ransom doesn't guarantee the victims that their network will be restored and paying ransome does encourage the perpetrators target more companies with the file-encrypting malware. For organisations that are hit by a ransomware attack, there are a number of hard choices that need to be made, and one of the most difficult is whether or not to pay the ransom.

IBM researchers have analysed the impact the decision-making process of organisations that had suffered a successful ransomware attack and concluded that paying the extortionists is not generally a good idea. Less than 60% of organisations that paid the demanded ransom were able to recover even part of their data and 39% of companies that pay a ransom never see any of their data again.

National Crime Agency: Fortinet: Graphus AI: Coverware: BBC: BBC: ZDNet:

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