back to article Ransomware gang: How can I extort you today?

Three out of four ransomware criminal gangs are willing to negotiate the shakedown price. And all the operators of file encrypting ransomware scams will give victims more time to pay up. So say security researchers at F-Secure, who investigated the "customer experience" of five active crypto-ransomware variants, beginning with …

  1. FuzzyWuzzys
    Facepalm

    Oh dear Lord!

    Makes perfect business sense, keep 'em happy and they'll tell all their friends, and more importantly they'll keep coming back for more!

    1. Triggerfish

      Re: Oh dear Lord!

      To be fair, for criminal activities there usually does need to be straight dealing and a certain honour amongst thieves attitude. They are probably more straight dealing than some corporations.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "customers"

    Victims / customers . works both ways

    I often refer to my customers as victims

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: "customers"

      You are Dido Harding, and I claim my £5!

      1. Anonymous Blowhard

        Re: "customers"

        "As such, crypto-ransomware families often operate similar to legitimate businesses, with accessible web pages, helpful FAQs, "free trials" for file decryption, and even customer support channels staffed by responsive agents."

        I was thinking this actually sounds much better than TalkTalk...

      2. x 7

        Re: "customers"

        I suppose whatever happens, Dildo Hardin's customers always get screwed

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    What is it with...

    all these Windows 10 articles?

    1. Oengus

      Re: What is it with...

      Can't be Windows 10. Microsoft can't negotiate a discount on Free and their customer service is far from responsive... Although with Windows maybe we should be negotiating with Micro$oft on how much they are willing to pay us to install Windows 10.

  4. JulieM Silver badge

    They've got to be nice

    Now there is "fake" ransomware doing the rounds (that just irretrievably messes files up, as opposed to reversibly encrypting them) the pedlars of "real" ransomware have to go out of their way to persuade the victim to pay up, rather than write it off as a bad job and restart from scratch.

    I also can't see the fake ransomware lasting long in the wild -- it's a threat to a criminal gang's business model, after all.

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