Researchers claim that ransomware campaigns are usually willing to negotiate these days.
“Cybersecurity firm F-Secure released a new report, “Evaluating the Customer Journey of Crypto-Ransomware and the Paradox Behind It,” which claims that three out of four ransomware criminal gangs were willing to negotiate the ransom fee.” – Charlie Osborne, writer for ZDNet.
By creating a fake account, researchers were able to negotiate with hackers and even receive up to 30 percent “discounted” from their ransom. This changes what we already know about ransomware. Many times when ransomware takes hold, a deadline for payment is put into place, creating a sense of urgency and stress for the victim. Hackers want you to pay as quickly as possible, and often place a lingering threat of further file deletion if payment is not met in a timely fashion. F-secure states that this is not exactly true, and that ransomware deadlines are more flexible than the average victim is aware of. As proven to be true with the fake account, each cyber attacker contacted by fake victims offered deadline extensions for payment. Remember this is for payment, not for letting victims off without file deletion.
F-Secure believes hackers are interested in establishing trust between victim and hacker to ensure they receive payment in some form. Hackers don’t necessarily care about the files lost, but are willing to work with you, purely for payment purposes. Begging and pleading still won’t get you much more than that.
As always, taking steps to stay secure is the best practice to avoiding ransomware. Negotiating is now on the table, but the reward is small in comparison to avoiding the malware altogether.
If you would like to educate yourself in more detail about the information presented in this blog post please visit : www.zdnet.com
