low-skilled criminals continued
to pick the low hanging fruit. Hmmm... I wonder why there is low hanging fruit?
Releases of new ransomware grew 24 per cent quarter-on-quarter in Q1 2016 as relatively low-skilled criminals continued to harness exploit kits for slinging file-encrypting malware at their marks. The latest quarterly study by Intel Security also revealed that Mac OS malware grew quickly in Q1, primarily due to an increase in …
Aside from moral considerations (whatever those are?), why shouldn't any script kiddie jump up and roll their very own ransomware with a do-it-yourself kit? After all, ransomware seems to be a very good revenue generator with hospitals, universities and even law enforcement agencies paying good money for the decryption keys. It's easy money!
And how often do we hear about these buggers getting caught and punished for their crimes? Pretty much never. As long as crime pays so well with so very little downside risk, why not go for it? And there's lots less risk getting "free money" with a keyboard than with a cosh, knife or gun.
Internet theft is just going to get worse until some geniuses figure out a way to totally stop or catch and punish these ransomware authors and other miscreants. The Internet, instead of being a shiny "information superhighway" is becoming more and more like a potholed street in a seedy neighborhood you don't feel safe in, especially after dark.
W32.Qakbot in Detail: 'The worm arrives as an EXE file that is UPX packed with an additional custom encryption layer. Within the EXE is a DLL that contains the core functionality of Qakbot.'