Police Doxing of Criminals Raising Ransomware-Attack Stakes

Incident Responders Say Disruptions Help, See No Spike in Median Ransom Payments Mathew J. Schwartz (euroinfosec) • November 4, 2024

For anyone dreaming that law enforcement agencies might somehow be able to arrest ransomware bigwigs or intelligence agencies take them out via drone strikes, keep on dreaming.

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For now, real-world disruptions are less dramatic. Law enforcement continues to infiltrate attacker infrastructure to disrupt operations, unmask and indict key players - and sometimes make arrests, though these generally involve low-level players or affiliates based outside Russia.

The challenge remains this: ransomware is highly lucrative and carries orders of magnitude less risk than other types of crime, such as holding up a bank with a sawed-off shotgun.

The good news is that Western law enforcement efforts do appear to be having an impact, despite some outsize ransom payments ...