Bitcoin Forum

Qihu 360, the leading IT company in China, releases an annual report on the development of ransomware in China and predicts 10 times growth of potential victims or 50 million in 2017.



http://news.8btc.com/chinese-bitcoin-ransomware-report-11-9-victim-pay-to-recover-their-files

This is a bad publicity for bitcoin. Because they use bitcoin as their bridge from their crimes. This is not.a joke since bitcoin is at stake at this situation. I think it will be unstoppable. And they will put the blame to bitcoin.

I had my computer hacked back in June and they demanded 1.2BTC for ransom. Although I know how to send BTC and I have some BTC (not greater than that 'huge' amount) back than, I don't pay them and I had Googled the solution for the ransomware. Luckily there's a decrypter available online and we had successfully decrypted our files for free. My mom's friend also had her computer hacked in August, and also demanded Bitcoin ransom, but their technical knowledge is not that high (and don't even know how to get bitcoin) so they have to format their hard disk...
Agreed... After our computer was hacked for ransom paid in Bitcoin my family had lost all confidence in it (they had only little confidence in Bitcoin even before that)... I'm the only member of my family that is get involved in bitcoin (and altcoins)...

The one who don't understand bitcoin completely may think bitcoin as a way for hackers to get away with ransom amount or as criminal money. But all types of currency are being used by criminals and hackers. You have to make them understand what actually is bitcoin and how it has been safe currency for hackers and criminals.

People have to think about securing their computer rather than blaming bitcoin for the cause, malware/ransomeware need a way to enter in computer. Most of the people are careless about their web surfing habit and they keep downloading files from unknown sources which are the main cause for malware and ransomeware. I am also one of them who got infected by ransomeware in past and sadly i can't afford to pay ransom amount so that i have to format my laptop completely.

Well that would definitely sour the public's perception of Bitcoin. It has already been associated with illegal transactions for a long time and this is not going to help btc's and altcoin's reputation.

Is very bad news to hear and offering our sympathies for you. My father never want to use phone that is more advance than SMS phone only, since he hears from friends they have their phone being hacked (even I think is not true as the friends just lose passwords or play with settings to spoil it). Wish you luck and be more careful for visiting unknown sites.

How many times do we need to repeat this? DO YOUR DAMN BACKUPS and then you will laugh at this, when it happens to you. I backup regulary on DVD's, so I will not pay a cent, if I get Ransomware demanding bitcoins to decrypt my data. DO NOT simply over write previous backups on a external harddrive, because that may be infected too. DO NOT save private keys on your computer. Use Virtual machines / Clean bootable Operating systems like Tails to restart the OS after each session, to avoid infection.

Lastly, educate people about this threat and counter measures to protect themselves. ^smile^

11.9% is a large number. Given the speed at which ransomware spreads, even if a small percentage of infected computers agree to pay the ransom, the attacker has made a tidy profit. With such a large number ready to pay, it is not surprising that ransomware has the potential to grow exponentially. It won't translate into growth for Bitcoin though.

Thanks for your sympathies, and I (as the admin of the computer) have made stricter control on user rights since then (previously, for convenience, all users had admin rights). It was my younger brother browsing websites when he was doing his school project when the computer was hacked. Fortunately we had most of our files backed up or decrypted successfully and no important data nor bitcoins was lost.

For your father's case, I think he can use the latest smartphones despite he is afraid of being hacked, if he know not to store many important information on the phone...

In fact I have monitored the BTC price since my PC hack in June (I had left for a while that time), and the price haven't stopped increasing since that time, from $460 to $800 today... These ransoms in fact bring lots of buy orders on Bitcoin (and the hackers won't sell them instantly as they may be tracked) and hence driving up the price...
Well I am always doing this...
We are always doing this to avoid hardware failure.

this ransomware is becoming one of the worst malwares of our time in my opinion, it is growing fast and the protections currently available doesn't seem to be strong enough against its variations. and the fact that it is coupled with bitcoin for the distributors to take ransom is doubly worse because of how it is making bitcoin look in the media.

This is indeed serious and the advance laboratories should come up with a solution soon, most of the recent worms are passed through crypter to make them undetectable by hardcore antivirus so it's scary at the moment but hope for a solution in the coming weeks.

if this kind of ransomware fluorish over the china, would bitcoin banned in China or how could Chinese government do to prevent those kind of ransomewares? that is a question.
btw qihu 360 softwares' award were disqualified because of possible cheats on performance on preventing viruses.

This is a worrisome big number, 11.9%

This is something I don't understand:

does this mean that there still are antivirus programs that don't detect ransomware?


And about bad publicity:
Somebody smart enough will see thru this and be able to decide that if cyber criminals can rely on Bitcoin, then Bitcoin is a really good coin/currency/asset, actually.

maybe it is because China has the first largest population in the world that it also has the most victims to this particular ransomware.
but I doubt that the government is going to do anything about bitcoin just because a computer malware is using it to take ransom from pool people who was the victim of this malware, that wouldn't make any sense.

there have been some improvements on breaking the encryption from some of the variations of this malware though. but it has not yet been completely neutralized.

It is also a cultural issue. In third world countries, people have no qualms about using pirated software if it means saving a few dollars. When lots of people download and install software from unsafe sources on the net, it becomes easy for malware to spread.

Without doubt  the spread of ransomware is a bad issue and is something which anyone of us have take under consideration. Moreover I see that China goverment has enact strict penalties which means that it takes very seriously the whole issue. But I would like to mention another one thing which is more evil imo. Recently ransomware criminals asked of their victims to pay or sending a link so as to infect other computers i.e to act like as trojan horse in order decrypt their files. It's interesting to drop an eye if you are unaware of it. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1714639.msg17176971#msg17176971

Bitcoin is being made a scapegoat for the ransom ware, it is not even related to it. This fools are bringing bad name to Bitcoin, already people are skeptical of Bitcoin and this news won't really help people come into Bitcoin. There's no way to stop this people or file a complaint in your local country it department and then they track it, or we have to live under constant fear of being held for Ranson? It could also be the local work right? I hope people do not associate this with Bitcoin as both are not even related.

Yes its the main reason for malware to spread quickly in third world and developing countries. Actually people from these countries can't afford to buy 100$+ priced software for one small task but they need it badly, so they will keep searching for crack version and key generator and most of the time this types of files contains malware.

I agree, ransomware is pretty bad, especially that new one that gives you the option to infect your friends instead of paying  :o
It's unfortunate that bitcoin has gotten itself in this mess because it only increases the stereotype that bitcoin has with drugs, hackers, terrorism,...
I really hope that people learn one thing from this though: backups,backups,backups... ;)

In the article they are saying that criminals who have committed frauds with value of more than 500,000 RMB (which is $71,500) will get lifetime imprisonment. I'm wondering if hackers robbed 100 victims for $800 will they get lifetime imprisonment? If the answers is yes, and most likely it is, the hackers should think twice whether it worth the risk. What a life! First you are robbing innocent people and then you spend the rest of your days in prison.

I know that bitcoin payments are irreversible, but there should be a way to refund those nasty

ransom payments.This creates a bad reputation for bitcoin.

There're some good exchanges that will freeze the hacker's accounts when they found that the fund deposited was the hacked funds. However for exchanges to do this the amount must be big enough to catch eyes of them (so normal ransomware hacks isn't this case) and the exchange is good enough to forfeit the big fee collected by trading those coins (that's why they're only few of these cases).

For a refund of a bitcoin tx, I would definitely say no because this is one of the advantage of bitcoin and doing this will make the price crash!

In China people could pay money to officials to make them free of being imprisoned... Also they may pay and find someone to be in jail in place of themselves...

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So the high percentage of Chinese paying for ransomware maybe a reason that why BTC is so popular in China (so miners there mine BTC for them and get RMB), as they have created a lot of buy orders...

I hope you can provide links that is related to your comment. It's hard to judge China as a country who uses bitcoin in illicit activities if there are no documents to backup your claims.

I just want to be critical in believing to a certain information. But if given that you are right I hope that bitcoin should not be used in illicit activities. Let's just hope that the issue on ramsware could not have a big and giant effect on bitcoins reputation as well as its price.

This could blown up into a multi million dollar business,they can do this business because authorities cnnot trace them if they pay with Bitcoin,with so many bitcoin mixers in the market,it's so hard where are these bitcoin coming from and who owns it,they should find a way to stop it...

Well the claims on Chinese paying out of prison etc are just my personal thoughts of them, and if you don't think it is true, simply ignore them.

As I have mentioned in my previous post on this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1723422.msg17249679#msg17249679), the reputation of bitcoin has falled, at least for my family. However as I mentioned on another post of this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1723422.msg17250108#msg17250108), it would have a positive effect on price due to the buy orders created. This is why these ransomware hacks have both pros and cons on bitcoin.

wow that is such a big percentage, and we are talking about Chinese population not a small country. that 11.9% in China is a lot of people who have already been a victim to this virus.
i just hope bitcoin doesn't start to look like a criminal coin again in the media.

Yes, it's big but I thought it's even bigger. This virus is very agressive and Bitcoin ransoware is so lucrative source of money for hackers. Most people usualy pay because they don't have other solution, they don't have back up or anything. And yes, this could again lead to the thing that Bitcoin is beeing considered as criminal which is very bad. But people have to understand that criminals are just misusing it like fiat money too.

I agree, 11.9% is a shockingly high number and guarantees an expansion of these criminal activities since they are insanely profitable (given the significant amount paid in each individual case). It's clearly bad for the perception of Bitcoin, because most people are (incomprehensibly) unable to differentiate between the criminal, who caused the damage and the currency he uses. If an act of crime is the first occasion for people to learn about Bitcoin, they will certainly stay away from it.

On the other hand the remedy against ransomware is not really complicated: regular backups.

ya.ya.yo!

How does the malware infection ? How can it be prevented ?

What you are saying is true, their are users who in greed download the exe from the site who are offering free gifts or any other bounty and when their computer gets hacked or get virus infected start to blame others or blame bitcoin users and give bad remark to bitcoin. But the true followers of bitcoin knows the problem and it wont affect much in Bitcoin community as all types of currency are used in ransomware but blaming bitcoin is easy for them.

People spread this via infected email attachments or through malicious websites or even through pirated software. You can prevent this, by

not opening strange attachments or clicking on weird links and not downloading and/or using pirated software. I still remember not long ago,

someone distributed malicious code within a pirated game, which he used to create a bot farm to mine Alt coins.  ::) Also backing up your

files will prevent you from having to pay for possible data loss.  ;)

The problem is anyone can use fiat. Your 5 year old knows if they take out the garbage they'll get a dollar, which they can buy some gum with. The problem is we don't want just 'smart people' to use bitcoins, as that's not a large portion of the population. Regular 'non-smart people' that just hear on the news that bitcoins are bad because of this won't think twice about it. Bitcoins are now bad in their eyes. They don't understand anything about bitcoins so if this is the only thing they know they won't get past it unless something good happens from bitcoins.

In the end this is just slowing down adoption.

To be honest I'm surprised that there are so many people affected by ransomware and how few of them actually go and pay for it. I would assume that a significant portion of those who don't pay have many or recent backups of their data, so something like that could potentially be explained, but it also goes to show there is a LOT of money that can be made in ransomware, even if only a small percentage pay.

Current computer security system is really not good(I know that releasing some virus are also a part of advertisements for those companies that offers anti-virus or malware system). I am not so surprised about this thing to happen tho that is why i do not hold too much huge information or amounts on any online system

Only 12%? I'm surprised to be honest. I would have expected for a lot more people to be paying to recover their files, however it also depends on the demographics of the people that get infected with the ransomware now that I think about it. If a lot of businesses end up with something like ransomware, chances are their IT departments will just remedy it, assuming they have the tools.

Nothing to do with bitcoin, and I don't see why they will blame bitcoin. If they get hacked it's their incompetence of not protecting good enough their PC. Bitcoin is just pseudo-anonymous money that with the right tools can be converted to fully anonymous that's why those ransomware hackers asks to be paid in such currency.

In the end it is the user duty to protect their PC.

Sure, they shouldn't blame bitcoin, but for a lot of people it might be the first time they hear about bitcoin and that's not a good first impression.

Exactly true, bitcoin had bad first impression since it have been used for illegal things, although fiat also have been used more for terrorist and war purpose.
And that's exactly true their not securing their device because they not have good ability to protect it.

But why used suspicious things to rise marketcap, why not spread good vibe about bitcoin to worldwide, I'm not hypocritical, I want bitcoin price rise, but with beauty ways.