Russian hackers 'are behind 75% of crypto ransomware'

Russian-speaking criminal gangs are responsible for over 75% of crypto ransomware, new research announced at RSA Conference 2017 claims.

A total 47 of the 62 new crypto ransomware families discovered by Kaspersky Lab in 2016 can be tied to Russian-speaking groups or individuals. This conclusion is reportedly based on "observation of underground forums, command and control infrastructure, and other artefacts".

"It is hard to draw strong conclusions on why so many of the ransomware families out there have a Russian origin," wrote senior malware analyst Anton Ivanov in a SecureList blog, "but it is safe to say that this is because there are a lot of well-educated and skilled code writers in Russia and its neighboring countries."

Ivanov also cited the fact that Russia has a strong history of ransomware, linking the current epidemic to a wave of attacks from 2009 to 2011, which blocked access to browsers and operating systems in exchange for a fee. "The epidemic withered for a number of reasons," he said, "but it seems that experienced ransomware criminals haven't disappeared".

Other statistics revealed as part of the research include the fact that in Q3 2016, an individual was hit with a ransomware attack every ten seconds while a business was attacked every 40 seconds. Furthermore, one in five SMBs who ponied up the cash for the ransom still did not get their data decrypted.

The news comes at a time when fears of Russian hackers are at an all-time high. Debate still rages over whether or not Putin ordered state-sponsored hacks during the US election, and President Donald Trump's top national security advisor, Michael Flynn, resigned just this morning over leaks showing he had held discussions with the Russian ambassador over sanctions, before allegedly trying to cover the discussions up, though Flynn said he had accidentally misinformed the president over the nature of his talks.