Crypto’s collapse isn’t solving the ransomware problem

August 19, 2022 – Published on Axios

t’s going to take more than a months-long cryptocurrency free fall to squash the mounting ransomware problem, cyber incident responders and threat analysts tell Axios.

Why it matters: Companies have been struggling to fight off an abundance of ransomware hackers in recent years, but recent optimism over a crypto-crash-fueled drop in attacks might be short-lived.

State of play: Since November, the cryptocurrency market has lost at least $1 trillion in value. Some cybercrime experts and recent reports have been optimistic that the crash and increased U.S. government focus on the ransomware ecosystem could turn the tide against these attacks.

The intrigue: Even with crypto’s decline, most companies are still facing the same steady number of attacks and paying up, according to negotiators, incident responders and threat analysts who spoke with Axios.

Victims are mostly paying up when faced with a ransomware technique known as “double extortion,” where hackers threaten to leak any stolen company information from the attack unless the company pays up, says Drew Schmitt, an analyst at cyber consulting firm GuidePoint Security.

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