International police arrest 16-year-old alleged leader of huge ransomware group

[VaqueroTD]

Whoever arrested him will let him sit in a cell for a few months then give him "parole" and put him to work for them.

For his sake, hopefully so, because he sure won't last long in most prison environments. He should offer to show other inmates how to hack with AI for protection. LOL

 

[gtb1943]

They don’t normally go for individuals. It’s rare if at all. They go for bigger fish.

small businesses you can do the same. And that is where a fair number of these scams really hurt.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Sadly there will always be at least one employee that just does not learn, until it is too late, that you do not click on links in emails that come from questionable addresses or questionable situations.

Some years ago our company got hit with a ransom ware situation. I remember getting an email with a weird link in it. The address looked like it could have come from a reputable source but it was slightly off with a spelling error.

I deleted it from my email. Told co workers not to click on it if they get it. But of course there was that one employee. An older lady that was already shaky with some computer related situations but also one of those people who think they know more than they do. She clicks on the link. It downloads the program and they wind up paying money not to lose info no their server.

I backed up all my work on a weekly basis for some things but on a monthly basis for all things due to monthly reports. So I would have been ok but others were not as vigilant.

Many users are savvy enough to avoid those emails, use ad blockers in case they are on various web sites. But like I said earlier, there will always be that one employee, at least, who thinks they know more than they do that will click on a link they should not and that is all it takes

 

[Reverend Conehead]

Sadly there will always be at least one employee that just does not learn, until it is too late, that you do not click on links in emails that come from questionable addresses or questionable situations.

Some years ago our company got hit with a ransom ware situation. I remember getting an email with a weird link in it. The address looked like it could have come from a reputable source but it was slightly off with a spelling error.

I deleted it from my email. Told co workers not to click on it if they get it. But of course there was that one employee. An older lady that was already shaky with some computer related situations but also one of those people who think they know more than they do. She clicks on the link. It downloads the program and they wind up paying money not to lose info no their server.

I backed up all my work on a weekly basis for some things but on a monthly basis for all things due to monthly reports. So I would have been ok but others were not as vigilant.

Many users are savvy enough to avoid those emails, use ad blockers in case they are on various web sites. But like I said earlier, there will always be that one employee, at least, who thinks they know more than they do that will click on a link they should not and that is all it takes

At a company I worked for recently, they made us watch training videos on security frequently. You would get sick of having to watch yet another security video, but they did it that way because there's so much fraud out there. And I DID get phony emails. I got some claiming I needed to do some training. I forwarded it to my boss asking him if it was legit, and he said no. I got phony emails all the time. Most of them were obvious BS, but some of them were very slick in how they made it look real. Some of them had details specifically about our company. I remember one that claimed that Paul Stalder (fictitious name I'm using for our CEO) had ordered everyone at the company to watch a video at a particular link. I forwarded it to Paul, and he said that, no, he had required no such thing. You can't be too careful. I always suspect that someone at our company was selling information to the grifters.

 

[Cowboys5217]

Throw the book at him. I used to work for a company that recovered computers that had been infected by ransomware. I've seen people in tears when ransomware had wiped our years of their work building a business. Fortunately, we were usually able to help people. This was before ransomware typically encrypted data. It would just trash Windows so that people couldn't run their computers, but the data was still there. So we would boot to a Linux DVD and then copy their data to a thumb drive. Then we had a tool that let us go in and fix Windows. If that didn't work, we could always format the hard drive and reinstall the OS from scratch. Today the ransomware criminals often encrypt their victim's data and then claim they'll decrypt it if the victim pays up. So people will use keygens to get a password that decrypts their files (hopefully).

But I've seen the damage done by ransomware. Even if this kid is only 16, I hope he sees the inside of a jail cell.

It's why I back everything up on a second computer that never touches the internet. if I get ransomed I can just reformat and reload.

 

[shabazz]

How oh how did businesses, governments, military and utilities ever function before the internet.

Mark Mothersbaugh forsaw this when he called for De-evolution.

 

[triplets_93]

Sadly there will always be at least one employee that just does not learn, until it is too late, that you do not click on links in emails that come from questionable addresses or questionable situations.

Some years ago our company got hit with a ransom ware situation. I remember getting an email with a weird link in it. The address looked like it could have come from a reputable source but it was slightly off with a spelling error.

I deleted it from my email. Told co workers not to click on it if they get it. But of course there was that one employee. An older lady that was already shaky with some computer related situations but also one of those people who think they know more than they do. She clicks on the link. It downloads the program and they wind up paying money not to lose info no their server.

I backed up all my work on a weekly basis for some things but on a monthly basis for all things due to monthly reports. So I would have been ok but others were not as vigilant.

Many users are savvy enough to avoid those emails, use ad blockers in case they are on various web sites. But like I said earlier, there will always be that one employee, at least, who thinks they know more than they do that will click on a link they should not and that is all it takes

Even tech companies that work with Govts. are slackers in ways that boggle the mind.

'123456' password linked to Denmark data breach affecting 8.8M people​

https://www.theregister.com/securit...mark-data-breach-affecting-88m-people/5302726

And then there's this from the taxpayer school worker:

User refused to change her password because everyone already knew it

https://www.theregister.com/securit...word-because-everyone-already-knew-it/5301864

 

[darthseinfeld]

For his sake, hopefully so, because he sure won't last long in most prison environments. He should offer to show other inmates how to hack with AI for protection. LOL

While definitely better than prison, being an asset isnt that great either. They pretty much own you

 

[darthseinfeld]

Sadly there will always be at least one employee that just does not learn, until it is too late, that you do not click on links in emails that come from questionable addresses or questionable situations.

Some years ago our company got hit with a ransom ware situation. I remember getting an email with a weird link in it. The address looked like it could have come from a reputable source but it was slightly off with a spelling error.

I deleted it from my email. Told co workers not to click on it if they get it. But of course there was that one employee. An older lady that was already shaky with some computer related situations but also one of those people who think they know more than they do. She clicks on the link. It downloads the program and they wind up paying money not to lose info no their server.

I backed up all my work on a weekly basis for some things but on a monthly basis for all things due to monthly reports. So I would have been ok but others were not as vigilant.

Many users are savvy enough to avoid those emails, use ad blockers in case they are on various web sites. But like I said earlier, there will always be that one employee, at least, who thinks they know more than they do that will click on a link they should not and that is all it takes

I dont click external links to the point that my benefits department had to reach out to be and respond to an Etrade email because thats where they moved out stock options lol

 

[Creeper]

It is not surprising that the arrests including people from different countries. This is how they work generally. They organize over secure chat applications and collaborate the same way.

I worked for a major bank in development back in the 1980s and we have a breach of our funds transfer system. This was over dial up modems! The FBI came into investigate and eventually the perpetrators were caught. Hackers from 5 countries were involved. The problem for them was the money was traced, and they were caught.

Today it's crypto instead of money and it is a lot harder to trace. Although, I think some government agencies have either developed a tool to trace Bitcoin.