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back to article Online crims delight in watching you squirm, says Mandiant

Criminals behind ransomware attacks are drinking the digital disruption Kool-Aid, changing their attack methods in new and nasty ways to target business according to forensics outfit Mandiant. Ransomware and extortion hacks are on the up, the firm says, along with the quiet compromise of code. It is part of the findings into …

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  1. Seajay#

    I don't think "drinking the Kool-Aid" means what you think it means

    The substance of the article says that attackers are using nasty but effective and optimised attacks. "Drinking the Kool-Aid" means going along with a bad idea from peer pressure or blindly following the company line / recieved wisdom. That's not what's happening here. In fact that's nearly the opposite of what's happening here since the criminals are changing their attacks to make them more effective.

    11 0 Reply
    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Windows

      "Reverend" Jones is alive!

      The "Kool Aid" drinker is the industry. Decades of technical debt in security (not to mention PHB debt in understanding of the most basic technical elements whatsoever) are biting now, indeed.

      drink the kool-aid

      1 0 Reply
  2. Bc1609

    scheduled tasks tasks that reboot wipe and reboot boxes

    Come on chaps.

    3 0 Reply
  3. PaulAb

    Pre-emptive strike!

    I decided that before Mr Putin's and the Cabbage patch kid's colleagues in the newly forming USSR or North Korea could cock up my computer systems, that I would do it myself. I'm not deranged, just useless. Also, I prefer my tea without Polonium or a spikey umberella.

    Now how do I get into ADSI edit,... Oh there it is......

    0 0 Reply
    1. TheVogon
      Reply Icon

      Re: Pre-emptive strike!

      "Now how do I get into ADSI edit"

      Not so easily. Adsiedit.msc will not run unless the Adsiedit.dll file is registered first.

      0 0 Reply
    2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Pre-emptive strike!

      in the newly forming USSR

      Looks like someone is drinking neocon cool-aid here. Bon appétit!

      2 2 Reply
    3. Intractable Potsherd
      Reply Icon

      Re: Pre-emptive strike! @PaulAb

      So, which of the ex- States of the USSR are going to reform the new USSR?* Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine? Short of major military effort, many of those will never again become part of a Russian Alliance. I'm not sure you have the right name for your fear.

      * Let's leave aside that the Soviet experiment will never be repeated, making the whole idea of a reformed "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" meaningless. Oh, and also the idea that socialism isn't going to be used if any sort of Union does occur.

      0 0 Reply
  4. Missing Semicolon Silver badge
    WTF?

    Blimey, did the author of the article actually read back what they wrote?

    This looks like it was slammed in at high speed, then published.

    Doesn't anybody do sub-editing any more at El Reg?

    And what the heck are "Popping Partners"?

    5 0 Reply
    1. zanshin
      Reply Icon

      Re: Blimey, did the author of the article actually read back what they wrote?

      Agree on the article quality.

      I took "popping partners" to be a verb/object pair. "By 'popping' (business) partners (of intended targets)..."

      1 0 Reply
  5. Big Al 23

    30 years in prison will reduce their extortion demands

    Internet extortionists should spend 30 years in the slammer to discourage their hacking activities.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Intractable Potsherd
      Reply Icon

      Re: 30 years in prison will reduce their extortion demands

      First - catch them. Second - find a way to prosecute them. Neither are so easy to do. The second aspect alone requires them to be in a country that would allow prosecution either by their home country or by another. Also, how do you decide which country gets to prosecute when their actions have affected people in many countries? This is not easy to sort out, and has made geo-political aspects of law enforcement interesting.

      1 0 Reply

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