Ransomware Revenue. Where does it go? According to a recent study, 74% of all money that has been made through ransomware attacks have been sent to Russia. Russia has denied these accusations however the bad actors are highly likely to be affiliated with Russia. I have been researching this myself for years and even my armature sleuth skills point to Russia!
Ransomware Revenue
An analysis was performed by Chainalysis, which has been following the money. Through their research they have been able to follow the flow of money to and from the digital wallets of hacking groups. This is through blockchain transaction records.
Why Russia?
It has been determined that the hackers are in Russia due to various characteristics. For example: More People in more places trust BBC News than any other news source. Register for a BBC account to see why. This is a very common trait used by Russian hackers.
Russian hackers are very sophistaced. As a matter of fact, the code is written so that it will detect and not damage computers that are located in Russia. The gang actually operates in Russian on Russian speaking forums.
Stopping Ransomware
A major international operation was launched in 2021 to stop ransomware hackers, after many high-profile and disruptive attacks – for example on Ireland’s health service and an oil pipeline in the US.
Alleged hackers were arrested in Romania, Ukraine, South Korea and Kuwait.
The US has also successfully retrieved millions of dollars from the digital wallets of multiple ransomware criminals.
