On: Hackers extorted $1.14M from UCSF

[landryraccoon]

The point is that there's no incentive for hackers to target state entities.

Hackers can target state entities for other reasons, but no rational hacker would do it for the ransom, since there won't be any ransom paid.

The FBI can simply say "We'll never catch the hackers, but if you pay them you'll go to jail". It accomplishes the same goal of reducing the reward for hacking to zero.

[thrownaway954 → landryraccoon]

ah.... yeah... they still will.

just cause they can't get a ransom, doesn't mean the data it's valuable as they can still sell it on the black market to carders and other gangs.

it's very ignorant to think that just because you cut off one area of revenue for these gangs that the problems will stop.

[vkou → landryraccoon]

This works for targeted attacks, but doesn't work for untargeted, shotgun-ransom-ware attacks.

Shotgun attacks aren't discouraged if some X% of their targets can't/won't pay the ransom.