Don’t blame Bitcoin for ransomware

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Amid the growing geopolitical threat of ransomware, crypto has become a workhorse. Following a series of high-profile exploits, calls have been made to ban or monitor blockchain networks, believing bitcoin to catalyze cybercrime.

The risks of ransomware are real: any organization that relies on computers can be vulnerable to digital extortion. The threat isn’t always clear: Malware can be developed or deployed by individuals, state-backed groups, or hacking collectives. And the price is high: Computer hijacking can disrupt critical infrastructure from power grids to watersheds, endangering lives and economies.

This article is taken from The Node, CoinDesk’s daily recap of the most crucial stories in blockchain and crypto news. You can sign up to receive the full newsletter here.

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Given the amorphous threat posed by ransomware, crypto emerges as a concrete vector of action. After all, the Colonial Pipeline hackers got paid in BTC. The same goes for REvil, a group that has previously attacked Apple and received $ 70 million in bitcoin for its recent Kaseya exploit. A new crowdfunding site, Ransomwhe.re, seeks to track bitcoin payments to wallets associated with ransomware gangs.

But blaming crypto for the increase in ransomware is a mistake, said Marcus Hutchins, a British computer security researcher with a busy career in the malware industry. In a video titled “Why Destroying Bitcoin Won’t Stop Ransomware,” Hutchins notes that hackers will find a way, with or without bitcoin.

“Cryptocurrency has certainly made ransomware more accessible and contributed to its proliferation, but without it these types of attacks would have persisted,” he told CoinDesk. When the malware industry first emerged in 2012, it was common to accept US dollars for exploits.

While the recent trend of corporate hacking has been primarily funded by crypto – Chainalysis found crypto ransomware payments to hit $ 412 million last year – this is not a sufficient reason to take action against it. a nascent industry.

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“We have absolutely no data on what corporate ransomware attacks without cryptocurrency might look like. We can only theorize on the basis of past techniques, but not future innovations. ‘Banning cryptocurrency to stop ransomware is naive at best,’ he tweeted.

Hutchins is known in the hacker community for shutting down WannaCry in 2017, during the time of the world’s largest ransomware attack, which infected hundreds of thousands of computers around the world and shut down more than a dozen hospitals. British.

He is also the architect of darknet sites, botnets and malicious scripts. As a teenager, Hutchins began spending time on web forums, where he fell into ghostwriting malicious code. He paid well, in recreational drugs and bitcoin. One storyline would end up landing him in the United States, in a story fully told by Wired.

Since its reform, Hutchins has worked on reverse engineering malware and providing security advice. He also started a popular blog called Malware Tech. After observing the evolution of the ransomware industry over the past decade, Hutchins insists that the recent rise in ransomware cannot be blamed on crypto.

CoinDesk caught up with him to find out more.

Is there a natural rate of ransomware attacks that we might expect even if bitcoin / crypto was banned / never existed?

Cryptocurrency has certainly made ransomware more accessible and contributed to its proliferation, but without it these kinds of attacks would have persisted. Sophisticated cybercrime groups have access to money laundering networks and therefore are able to work with the SHU. It is impossible to estimate the number of ransomware without cryptocurrency, as the ransomware targeted by companies today did not appear until around 2016, when cryptocurrency was already the norm for payments.

Some have said that bitcoin is a horrible currency to use for criminal operations because every transaction is recorded. What happened after the Colonial Pipeline hack is a good example. What do you think?

Generally, bitcoin is preferred because it can facilitate a fast, frictionless automated payment validation infrastructure. But, due to its traceable nature, many gangs choose to cash in bitcoin and launder in USD instead.

You’ve noticed that ransomware uses the banking system, money issuers like Western Union, alternatives like Liberty Reserve, and crypto. Given the extent and history of cybercrime, is the only potential solution to ransomware more oversight of all financial systems?

No. This is not a solution at all, only a partial mitigation. While gangs are able to operate with impunity from non-extraditional countries, it does not matter how easily they can be traced if they cannot be arrested or arrested.

The way hackers are written sometimes describes ransomware as an industry of professionalization. Does this match your experience?

Yes, some of these groups have complex organizational structures with departments, management, and task pipelines.

What would you generally recommend to a business or government that has been infected?

It is important to undergo an external IR to investigate the scale and scope of the attack.

NTT, a Japanese technology service provider, found that cryptojackers accounted for 41% of all malware detected in 2020. What do you think of this trend? Is this a legitimate cause for concern? Is it just a question of rising crypto prices?

Cryptojacking is one of the ways to monetize access to devices with the lowest barrier to entry; as a result, it is accessible even to the most unskilled hackers, and therefore very widespread. Due to the non-destructive nature of cryptojacking, I think it’s something to deal with, but not a high priority threat like ransomware.

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