The danger of distributed ransom networks

Anonymity has it’s risks and it’s benefits. One of the dangers of anonymity is that it can empower ransomware makers to do distributed ransom attacks. Because the development of ransomware can be done in a distributed fashion and the payout for the ransom can be disbursed in distributed fashion these sorts of markets will likely form to leverage anonymity.

Denial of service attacks could be launched upon certain services or businesses. Hacks can take place where criminals can encrypt information in such a way that the key is broken and disseminated to the group. The group itself could be spread across multiple jurisdictions.

And before I could finish writing this blog post there is the release of the first Rasomware as a Service. It is only a matter of time before we see more of this so it would be a good idea to begin taking precautions the easiest of which is to simply not store Bitcoins on an electronic device. If you must store it electronically then do not store your keys all in once place by using 2 of 3  multisig or buy a Trezor hardware wallet.