Bitcoin Forum

I think the bitcoin will fall because of RANSOMWARE,it is impossible/Difficult to track who did this and in futur Bitcoins will be considered as a motivation mean for such act

Nah, the mainstream media has made surprisingly little mention of Bitcoin in their reporting of the ransomware attacks and it doesn't matter - it's just another crime that people can commit with Bitcoin if they want to.

Bitcoin isn't even the best thing to use for these attacks - Monero and other anonymous alts would ultimately be much better choices.

If anything, the price will go up because of people buying Bitcoin to pay their ransoms   :)

I agree with the fact that the media has made little mention of bitcoins, but the media is something and security stuff is other thing.
 the price will go up instantly but when this end Government will begin take serious decisions about bitcoin and its users/holders 

Government and all bitcoin holders knows that bitcoin is also being used for illegal purposes but this doesn't mean bitcoin price will dump just because of the current ransomeware attack. Some one have to buy bitcoin to pay hacker which will rather increase marketcap and price of bitcoin. It's bad that many have lost important files and many have to pay thousands to get their files back due to this but in past also there were such attacks when bitcoin was not evolved. So i don't think anybody should blame bitcoin for all this attacks.

It's not realistically possible for governments to ban illegal activities being done with Bitcoin.  The reason for this is based on logic that people like you state yourselves.

Actually, it's a paradox.  If Bitcoin really is untraceable, then a government trying to ban it will fail because criminals will not be traced.  If it is traceable, then a government will have no reason to ban it.

Regardless, they can't ban a decentralised network.  They can't just force someone to stop because "someone" is thousands and thousands of participants that they don't know.

As unfortunate as it is, it will actually increase demand for bitcoins through random people who have never used it needing all of a sudden to buy it.

In other words it will bring new people to the technology some of who otherwise would have resisted it to the end.

For the global impact not a lot of ransom has been paid...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1916199.0

I don´t think so. If anything, it could be a little price decrease if these people sold all their coins at once but surely they will not do that either.

Yes despite the fact that bitcoin is being used intensively for criminal purposes, this illegal use cases are playing important role in increasing demand for bitcoin.

Current buzz around this ransomeware may have positive effect on bitcoin price rather than any negative one.

I don't think it was greater impact to the market price really. Media didn't sensationalized bitcoin, what some other media reports says the threat of the virus is real, and not about bitcoin. Or could be increase the price of bitcoin it you look at it because people who has been affected may tend to buy to pay the ransom. I guess we just have to very careful now specially clicking any links we saw online so that we are not going to be another statistics of this illegal purposes.

It will have not any impact on bitcoin. The media always have written against the bitcoin and its use in the black markets of the deep web. Ransomware is just something from the deep web that some persons are doing in the normal internet and trying to get some bitcoins from people who are not educated well in using a computer(in regarding security matters I mean, not that they are total ignorant in this).

By this logic, we might stop using paper money because there are bad people who use it to buy drugs and guns...

Ransomware brings negative attention to Bitcoin and makes it easy for lazy journalists to write articles talking about 'criminals on the internet'
but will have no real long-term impact.

You know what they say any publicity is good publicity. Joking aside I don't think it will have any effect. Media already wrote a lot about bitcoin and money laundering/drugs already and look where we are.

Oh no, no, in fact there is KI based forensic blockchain analysis out there - in the near future most wallets will no longer be anonymous....

Criminals beware. I recently stumbled over this scary shit, because I was curious whether ZEC, XMR or DSH would offer better fungibility.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkNetMarkets/comments/5cb74u/blockchain_analysis_and_antimoney_laundering/

I am sure glad I never touched any of that darknet shit, but those who did, should be worried  :o

Paper money is accepted by everyone and to not affect the totally they do divide it on 2 dirty and clean money and they pretend that they fight against the dirty..on our case they don't have control..and as we know all if it isn't controlled so it is illegal

I don't think there is any direct impact on the price but it could certainly make people more fearful of computers and the internet. Thus they might trust technology less and use computers less. Since Bitcoin is based on computers and the internet this could have a negative effect on the price. People may also lose a lot of their money due to the Ransomware and have less funds to spend on Bitcoin. This could also negatively impact the price to a certain degree.

The Ransomware could have indirect positive effects on the price as well. Due to the attacks people may become more knowledgeable about computers and security. This draws them to computers and makes them more likely to but Bitcoin in the future.

Highly visible shit like this, will be used by governments to regulate and/or outlaw crypto, and stops normal people from touching crypto

THIS IS VERY BAD  :(

I would not be surprised if the recent -10% move is connected with Wannacry.

Nah. The price was (still is) overbought. It's normal to see the price drop if you take into consideration that people are cashing out, plus the fact that there is a poor level of buy support throughout the entire market at these levels. I personally don't give a single damn about the wave of ransomware infections, and others shouldn't too if they take care of their system security properly.

Uh, nope? Lots of these threads today. More threads here than actual ransomware sent out haha. If the demands were made recently it means they hacked these people quite a while ago to hold their info ransom.

It won't affect bitcoin. If you're too stupid to understand that every currency is used for crime the. You're too stupid for bitcoins. Try trading your turnip for a pencil and get back in school.

yea, but this ransomware spread is hitting government PC instance.
sure we, who aware such PC security won't take this issue serious, but imagine of a govn. instance with all public data got this on their server.

Bitcoin will always fall not because of the ransomware fiasco that we have right now but because of correction for its recent increase in price. With the news and articles that I read about ransomware, it is very noticeable that the blame is currently on NSA and not on BTC as a mode of payment for it. People are already aware that BTC can be used in many criminal acts but they can't do anything about it. The solution that they should be looking at is how to increase the security of their PCs (including briefing their employees about cybersecurity) and patch all the vulnerabilities that they discovered in Windows OS.

If a government gets its systems infected, they are doing something horribly wrong. Even more precise, I know certain local government departments where they still happen to run WIN XP on their systems -- how dumb is that? Main reason is that they try to cut costs as much as possible. And the government isn't the only entity using old and unsafe software to cut costs -- it's a wide spread problem that effects the business economy as well.

I do not think bitcoin will fall because of RANSOMWARE, the first thing that should fall if this really has great impact is the internet.  I do think that this so-called ransomware is an isolated case where a certain network are breached due to either human error of clicking something they should not have clicked or the ISP provider is so incompetent that they can't even secure their network.

I believe the last cyber attack has damaged a lot the reputation of bitcoin, and this were always this way people do their acts and then ask for bitcoin, i remember a project that has been hacked and they asked bitcoins as well, soo this is already happening, all need to raise the security level to avoid be catched in the middle.

I think that is putting BTC in bad light at purpose.
Some people want deomize BTC and they are using dirty moves.
Sadly not many point that all was because governments were using hack and didn't helped block security holes.

I believed that ransomware is not going to destroy bitcoin but going to decrease the reputation, the anonymity feature from bitcoin is not supposed to be used like this, but some people just like to used it for a wrong reasons, and actually it is not the bitcoin fault, fiat also being used for ransomware, but the media like to exposed it liked bitcoin was created to support bad thing

The fault was in the people who made and leaked this virus, because it obviously isn't home-made, Bitcoin is just a tool they are using to help their scheme not the cause.

There's a high chance that the ransomware was set to activate at a specific time and it was just infecting places along the way, and the NHS and whatever just happened to get caught up in it. Considering they're asking for just $300 it doesn't seem like a targeted attack and there were likely more factors at play.

Actually $300 worth of BTC is the 'bargain' price and it keeps rising as time drags on until it reaches $600 worth of BTC. If they still don't pay the virus deletes the encrypted files permanently. At least according to this article: https://apnews.com/770946e7df454d2e9acda3bdbd3ed425/Unprecedented-global-'ransomware'-attack-seeks-cash-for-data

taking ransom is something that has been happening ever since Middle Ages and with a lot of different requests, money, property, etc in return.
ransomware has been around for a while (1989) and it also has been asking for many different things. these include but restricted to wire transfers, premium-rate text messages, pre-paid voucher services such as Paysafecard.
ever since 2016 it has started asking for bitcoin also more.

now if you think this can bring down bitcoin, the decentralized cryptocurrency, then you don't know nothing about it ;)

p.s. don't worry they soon will move on to Monero.

This is one of the true use cases of crypto: where fiat can hardly go.  That said, bitcoin is a bit too transparent for this kind of activity.  They should have used an obfuscated chain, not a transparent one, because if they are not very, very careful, the coins will be traced to some point.

I concur. Of course, Bitcoin can be used by anyone and for any kind of transaction and yes somehow it makes it more convenient for hackers to do their job because they can now use Bitcoin and maybe get away with the transaction. But am sure that soon we can find a way to stop these bad people from using Bitcoin. There should be a way for these hackers to be trace so they can be discouraged from using Bitcoin for illegal acts.

Anonymity is one of the reason why the hacker selects bitcoins to be their ransom payments and they will be cover up by this since bitcoins are pretty anonymous and they can also use some mixer service so that they can be more hidden on this. And actually i can't see some point on why it has great effect on bitcoins since we already see some event like this and mostly the scenario happens is the dumping of their coins what they have so where is the great on that?

There should not be any effect on bitcoin as it is just another currency. What did such criminals used before bitcoins, yes fiat !
But maybe the governments won't think like this, can't say.
Every coin has two sides and it depends on the people how they use it.

i Agree Completely. No currency can be held responsible for the actions people take while using it. just like weapons cant be held responsible for the deaths they have been used to cause. or lamps being held responsible for the epileptic seizures cause by them when someone hits the switch on and off 20 straight times with an epileptic in the room. people aren't going to stop using bitcoin because certain other people use it for bad ends. inanimate objects are neither good nor evil. They are simply used by people who are either good or evil. I mean, would you up and decide to never use a toilet again because someone once drowned a child by forcing there head in a toilet and holding them down? no. because you realize that the toilet didnt kill the kid but the evil person did and you would be really tired of wiping with leaves (possibly poison ivy) within a week at max and would rush back to the toilet.

Bitcoin will not fail due to ransomware just as the US dollar or other Fiat currencies do not fail because people use it for illicit purposes. A currency at the end of the day government regulated or self-created and monitored is just that a means of exchange. What people do with an exchange will never be banned.

The whole blame story revolves around NSA and not on bitcoin. Bitcoin was just a source to collect the Ransomware money. I believe Bitcoin reputation wont be much hurt by this incident as bitcoin is not directly involved in this event of security lag. The vulnerability of windows OS  always exists and no matter how much update to date patched you have, Hackers are always one step ahead to breach the codes.

There are also some local banks that still run their systems on old versions of Windows, which instantly adds them to the list of hackable establishments. But on bitcoin in general, it has hardly affected the price and the media doesn't seem to be putting any special attention to it with regard to this ransomware. Bitcoin is going to be ok because there has been a lot more positive developments lately and wider adoption in some countries.

Question with this ransomware, is this limited to those who are known to be users of Bitcoins or this ransomware attack can happen to anyone. Is there a way to at least see if what you are downloading online includes a ransomware. Is there a way to at least avoid this like activating or deactivatikn some function in your OS.

  Surprisingly Bitcoin has only been a footnote in all of the articles I have read so far regarding this latest attack. BTC has come a long way since past negative incidents that have happened and media used the time to demonize  BTC. I think it has to do with it being much more widely accepted these days.

   The main story should be about the NSA exploits and data being leaked that helped the hackers develop this version of ransomware. Also the fact that there are so many vulnerabilities to be exploited in our Operating Systems is pretty damn scary.

We all know that bitcoin has been used for ilegal activity and also mainstream media always spread negative rumors about bitcoin so for those reasons i think it's not a big deal for the bitcoin because this is not the first time we've passed this situation however. Anyway I'm watching our local news channel that showing ransomware attack a hospitals database in my city which is very cruel and i was like ok this is not bitcoin's fault but i'm just wondering why not monero i mean it's untraceable crypto and more safe than bitcoin well at least more people knew it and it such a free advertisment for the bitcoin.

I think the price may fall, but there will be someone who will be interested in the currency and will want to know more. For example, a layman sees in the newspaper "Bitcoin" he does not know what that is and will research more and see that it is 3k dollars, he will want to know more.

Exactly a thing that comes to my mind when mainstream media try to frame bitcoin as "the bad guys tool" are these "NSA's Zero Day exploits" never reported to the vendors and also the NSA let then leak to the public ... is it ethical NSA Hackers to not report vendors bugs to get advantage on cyberwar field ?

ed; typo

It is already falling yesterday and the because of the ransomware virus that is affecting worldwide thats why the price drops and also you are right it is very difficult to track it down. But it would be stop by the experts . We could say that i think they already stop it but it is still affecting most of the cyber people world wide

ransomware doesnt look like effecting much on btc, more to alts coin.
so rip shitcoin </3

the problem should not be tracking it, the problem is whoever is the moron that allow his/her computer to be infected

the security issue here have nothing to do with bitcoin but with the user, the last version of this malware is spreading through a security hole of windows, which was already patched by microsoft

many opf these infected people are still running old xp or win 7, which are more vulnerable, so again has nothing to do with bitcoin

This is like "Fiat will fall because of kidnap for ransom scheme" which is a shallow reasoning for me. Fiat is widely used for any type of crime and yet, we never saw fiat fall. Just like in bitcoin, it will not fall because it is used for different type of crimes. Criminals just picked bitcoin for their own reasons and does that makes bitcoin evil? Hell no.

Though the usage of bitcoin for crimes is unavoidable and can even motivate others in doing such acts, we cannot then declare that it will be the wick for bitcoin's demise

   Haven't you really heard or read the news at all? This is a widespread global attack! The only reason Bitcoin has came up at all is because it is the method of payment that the hackers have requested. Other than that it has absolutely nothing at all to do with Bitcoin.

   If you install the latest windows updates you should be safe.

I don't see a reason why bitcoin would fall because of ransomware? just because bitcoin is being used it doesnt mean it will have any noticeable impact. probably just bad PR.

The ransomware made a lot of impact to the bitcoin because i think it is one of the cause why bitcoin price goes down a little bit in this past few days in the market. I read an article yesterday and the ransomware already collected 6 bitcoin in just one account and how much more for the other bitcoin address.

It is not that difficult to track bitcoin transactions as you could see everything in the block chain and if the hackers try to send those coins then i am sure the authorities will be monitoring every move and they can easily track them if they plan on sending those coins to any exchanges and the coins will be blocked.

I think it is not bitcoins who have the most impact in this recent ransomware attack but those with confidential files stored on computers which is connected to the internet. This is why those companies with big numbers of personal information just like hospitals were greatly affected and in with this kind of event the usual activities were affected or even worse halted because on the inaccessibility of certain information.

Yes of course, but see the good side, even if it is difficult, people are looking "What is bitcoin"

a somehow wise hacker would not send anything to an exchange, unless he can manage to mix the coins stolen properly, otherwise he would sell privately in real life, and would be impossible for anyone to track him

besides there is no connection between the address he used and his real identity, so the tracking would be pointless

You can track the blockchain transactions, but you can't track every person that makes them.  Hackers are the people who will put the most effort into keeping themselves anonymous, therefore the most basic tracking will have little effect.

It's hard to underestimate how good governments are at tracking people but the question is who will they be tracking?  It probably won't be the real hackers, and instead be a scapegoat that they're using or something.

I do not think Bitcoin price will be impacted because of this. Fiat has been used for thousands of years to commit crimes. Drugs, Thugs and Mafia were here long before Bitcoin ever came to the scene. It has just become another currency where criminals can enjoy stealing and earning from.

This can happen to any one. The ones who had not known bitcoin before will become bitcoin users later.

Since bitcoins usage in Silk Road, bitcoin is already labelled as a dark money to some. Well I guess is fiat makes no difference, for example fiat is already been used as a ransom in different part of the world and as a digital money, bitcoin can be used in such a way too but that doesn’t mean that it bad. The people who do that are bad not the bitcoin itself. Or maybe the government perform such act to make bitcoins name popularity bloom but in a mean way, who knows? Or it is such an act to cover up something more serious down there.

Will bitcoin be more famous with the existence of this ransomware virus?
Hopefully with the increasing popularity of bitcoin will make bitcoin prices rise.

maybe yes maybe not, peoples will start thinking and doubting bitcoin.
they will think bitcoin just a coin for people to be "invisible" in bribe and many more of bad stuff.
hopefully government wont say something stupid about bitcoin thou.

Bitcoin was being used for criminal purposes for several years and even government know about this but they can't switch it off or take it down. So even though bitcoin can be considered as a motivation for criminal act, bitcoin will not fall or won't be dead.

bitcoin will never fall, but the price only will falls.
so that still effects us a little bit to be honest. :/

Agreed, bitcoin in criminal purpose has increased a lot than the past. Also this time it has been found over 172 Countries network. Now I believe people will know much about bitcoin as well the popularity will increase to higher extent. Everything has a bad part, same can be overcome by the goodness. Let's hope the same to happen with bitcoin.

This incidents was very annoying that the hackers use bitcoin because they thought it will Untraceable but i think it also will have slightly impact for bitcoin price but Not globally because after these incidents i didn't see any countries declare to block bitcoin

80% of Indian ATMs operate on Windows XP and uses a firmware that limits the machine’s activities to basics such as dispensing cash and checking the balance. Other activities are blacklisted, which prevent a ransomware from attacking an ATM.
I'm curious though if it still spreads in India and how accurate do you think this statement really is.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/business-news/wannacry-ransomware-attack-how-safe-is-your-atm/story-VXyEXSvC7okrLdwPN8Lx3M.html

Meanwhile in China (Cause Pirated versions are even in the ATM machines)
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2017/05/12/atm%20china%203.jpg

All currencies since the beginning of time have been used to carry out a hostage/ransom situation at some point.  :D

Not only ATMs in China, many hospitals have similar problems, this hacker group is causing a global crisis. Although it is temporarily prevented, however, there is not anything that can guarantee that it will cease. They are really dangerous guys.

This is a very annoying incident that hackers include bitcoin in their hacking, if like this bitcoin will be viewed negatively and I'm afraid bitcoin will be judged as a supportive digital currency in terms of crime. I hope bitcoin will not be blocked because of this incident. Another one, I hope the bitcoin price does not go down drastically because of this incident. :'(

that what I meant really is to link making profit with an crime act to bitcoin

If seen from this incident, people who have never touched bitcoin, they will now touch it only to redeem their device, which has been hacked. Yes they will make a deposit to get bitcoin, so they can get back their device, which has been hacked, then hackers will immediately sell all the bitcoin they get. The impact, bitcoin prices again declined. :'(

I too feel strongly about this situation. Aside from any economic impact this also has a detrimental effect on the public's perception of technologies such as Bitcoin and Tor.

There are 'good guys' trying to prevent this type of problem; https://tornull.org - perhaps we might try to help them!   8)

I think the answer is yes because more and more people in my country start to read more about Bitcoin since there have been a wannacry. I believe that after this situation, the prices of Bitcoin will cross $2000

Its going to make more people wonder what is this bitcoin thing.  The masses must be wondering how can someone pay without being tracked and investigate further.

Well in fact if the malware is REALLY EFFICIENT the price should rise.
Because lots of money will have to be transformed into btc to pay the ransom xD

This would be a good logic but thinking off if the money needed by hackers are ransomed for local fiat money instead of bitcoin then what would be the effect? Its negative on either both sides even on btc payment it may somehow rise up the price but the credibility will surely be affected into bitcoin which would give bad impressions.

We cant escape reality and minds of most people would really think on this thing and will surely give negative impact on bitcoins adoption.In this case price might rise because lots will surely paid up the ransom to retrieve or decrypt their machines/system files etc. but image will surely be destroyed on exchange but I don't really bother or worried for bitcoin to be shutdown because of this one.

I've watched this in the news recently and I don't know its fortunate or unfortunate because no one has really reported anything regarding this and we might not know that if they have really experience and paid for it. Though on the other hand, I'm getting sick of these people saying Bitcoin is going to fall or die like from the rising unconfirmed transactions in the blockchain and this one. Bitcoin is strong actually and I think that ransomware can't shut the Bitcoin down.

I don't think it will be impossible to track who did this ransomware. I know one day there would be some hunters that can track him down. Well this is just another crime but the hacker is asking to ransom for bitcoin and this is going to give bitcoin another bad reputation. Shame on this guy, I hope that this will be resolved soon.

We do really have high faith for bitcoin and even on this catastrophe experiencing on bitcoin as of now I think it wont really be easily fall down on an instant.It can really be used for illegal stuffs since we do know the capacity and ability of bitcoin talking about anonymity that's why those criminals do really use it because they know that stuff too.It will surely give negative impact on bitcoins view to the public.

Everyone, especially the miners, said that if bitcoin segwit, they would lose the benefits. However, it is not accurate, in addition, some benefits are only their own interests, this shows that they are selfish. We should choose the measures that benefit the community.

Maybe the ob good thing in this all bad ransomware situation is that the hackers haven't earned that much, people were not paying to them. At least not that much as they have expected tow get. And I hop at least some of the victims have learned their lesson about the importance of protection and having back up.

As unfortunate as it is, it will actually increase demand for bitcoins through random people who have never used it needing all of a sudden to buy it.
In other words it will bring new people to the technology some of who otherwise would have resisted it to the end

The Ransomware really influents Bitcoin and make more people to attention to it. There are many opinions about bitcoin since wannacry exists. Some are bad, some are good but we have to admit that Bitcoin and ransomware is today trend and nothing can beat them. Soon, people will invest money in this crypto

I cant believe that WannaCry made it all the way to South Africa. What are the chances of that happening. Generally Africans stay below the radar when it comes to cyber crimes of this nature but not this time. Unfortunately I don't know much more information than that guys. I don't know who in SA got hit or anything like that.

i am not into this news but i hear some of this but dont know the exact details.. i just wanted to ask if is there any instances about this ransomware that bitcoin is what they want the victim to pay? or just purely cash or something?

Did you really have to feel sad about the situation? I honestly think that this is actually a good thing since it will raise awareness to people that such thing as bitcoin is existing. Consider this a free advertisement from the hackers.

What other digital currency do you propose them to use, though? Obviously they are not going to accept paper money since they would have to meetup with the victim or use a certain bank account. Paypal is no good as well since there will be whereabouts and the payments can easily be disputed.

The price of bitcoin has gone down by a hundred dollar which is totally not mind-boggling.

Well , actually the single way the attackers could be found is through blockchain and their adresses/transactions in case they use the BTC they got.
Many blockchain tracker expers have been hired these days to help finding those who started the mess.
There's no reason BTC price would go down. Actually , the media and the news focusing on BTC could even bring new investors and make people trust BTC even more , as a very safe way to hold your money.

Wanna cry has not been able to earn that amount of bitcoins as i have heard that the amount is fairly low,and even if the people are paying in bitcoins,it will have little effect in the price of bitcoins.

A ransomware now leads to bitcoin is useful for illegal purpose.Now,most of btc unknown peoples are wakeup and they're searching about what is bitcoin etc.,. so,my opinion btc price will be grow and usage also growing very speed.

If viewed from the negative side, I feel that this virus is very annoying. Even we have to send btc so the data we have does not disappear. But, if looking from the other side, maybe the person who made this is a genius.

Ironically, what might hurt ransomware the most is if there continues to be more versions that don't actually unencrypt a persons files after they pay. However, it is difficult to see how all this ends in the short term because how do you stop insiders/employees from injecting ransomware in systems for profit. Long term we will probably see all computers manufactured with designs to combat ransomware.

Its possible that the awareness of wannacry will soften the impact on future victims and expose others that have never heard of bitcoin to it. How ever you look at it, it is a positive in the long run.

Saying ransomware has negative effect on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general is like saying that money laundering has a negative effect on money. Criminal activities are connected to every currency in the world, every money transmitting entity be it banks, atms, credit cards and other. It's inevitable that hackers will try to target people with ransomware and bitcoin is the easiest solution in their view. The best answer is to do our best to be safe, keep backups and not allow ourselves to be threatened.
If you are paying them, you are financing all their future projects.

This is the worst incident, maybe this is the way of a handful of people to get bitcoint quickly, and maybe bitcoint will be considered negative by the people, let alone those who have never know or use bitcoint

Well its a mixed sort of thing. We never wanted that bitcoin gain attention in the media related to hackers attempts news. Although these days we see everyone talking about bitcoin but most of them wrongly relaying bitcoin with hacking which is not right and good thing for bitcoins. We always have wanted bitcoin in the Social media and TV news but with positive vision.

It's a negative event and not sure if it can/cannot affect bitcoin significantly, but bitcoin price seems decline in the last few days and not sure if ransomware has something to do with it.
Many countries have issued precaution act.to prevent any further spread of the virus or solve it, at least people already know about it and be careful with that. However, it seems ransomware doesn't influence people to buy/sell bitcoin as the price stay at same level until now.

I was victim of ransomware before and receive the same as this in notepad always popup when restarting the computer

https://i.imgur.com/eQfArdh.png

the issue before when found an antivirus that has ransomware decryptor from kaspersky before and all my files was recover but the popup notes are still not gone so i decided to format my laptop for safety since i have my own backup..

This is why a big issue about ransomware that until now not solve..

[/quote]
Out of curiosity, if the mixing services were forced by the Interpol to reveal all the data, would they? it's a big question.
[/quote]

Does a bear crap in the woods .Of course they will Hidemyass hush mail etc etc there a ton of exmaples sf supposely we respect your security  and will never give up your info soon change there tune when the big  law enforcemnet agencies gets invloved . Even if there base in countries that are outside the FBI INTERPOL juractions they have "ways" of getting the people involved to talk

I don't think there will be a lot of impact on the price.
People need to stop trying to blame bitcoin just because It's being used by criminals.

It's the same as blaming the Dollar just because someone kidnapped your son and asked for money.

Bitcoin has nothing to do with the recent attacks and if hackers use one form of transaction method does not mean that it has to be crucified,the problem lies in the fact that Microsoft OS are vulnerable for these kind of attacks and if you are not careful with it you have to pay more to fix the issue,start using open source software.

they used bitcoin as mode of payment for the ransom because bitcoin is untraceable.
i think this not gonna affect on bitcoin. the value of bitcoin now is still increasing.
i hope that this ransomware not gonna affect also in my computer.

This is a total mistake on how bitcoin works, in fact bitcoin is publicly transparent and easily traceable. Each coin can be traced back to the exact moment it was created.
You can even create a monitor on someone's account by simply throw a satoshi on it and see where that satoshi goes.
The "issue" comes with mixers, mixers are no more than what those people using bums for withdraw with fake cards do. The simplest approach to it is to taint mixed coins, so instead of "laundry" your money there you actually "make it dirty".

ain't see that coming! will thank you for this info.

if is it transparent! are this Ransomware Group are already in jail?
because they have more ransom to come in their pocket if they are not trace by the NBI.

You can see who paid for the known addresses, when they move the coins you can keep on their track.
Eventually they will surface at a legit market.
The key event here is to get to know who used a mixer along the line. And make the users know that using a mixer is a suspicious action on itself, legit users shouldn't do that.
So, with some forensics and time you can get there. Unless the group is up to hold a fortune they can't move anywhere.

Ransomware attacked more than 150 countries. I think these countries are ready to ban bitcoin transactions.In india RBI designed some rules but,not yet published.This issue RBI will ban bitcoin soon.

That's just stupid and prevents nothing. Actually you will increase its darker uses, the commodity will not loose a cent of its value because some central bank believe itself to be god-like. You can't stop the wind with your hands, nor does any central bank. In a sense that's like trying to forbid money or gold because people use it to buy guns, drugs or whatever.
Better base it on the legit market, so users can opt-in for coupe with some regulation instead.

And to the very end, not only ransomware is way older than bitcoin, as if your technical knowledge of it is limited to "OMG! Forbid it!", than bitcoin and ransomware are the least of your problems. You know this virus will not infect anything without a local network user intervention, right?

The people tend to be ignorant, if already a lot of people think in criminals or hackers when they see the word Bitcoin, now they will think it a lot more. They do not even think that Bitcoin is the currency of much people. Is it so sad their ignorance.

With all the problems this Ransomware has caused, it has given Bitcoin a lot of exposure. Yes its in a bad light but we all know there is no such thing as bad exposure. the last 5 days I have heard the word Bitcoin on radio and TV more than ever before. A lot of people who don't know about it are now asking questions and doing research. Its growing in popularity especially in developing countries where its not so well known.

People might really think on what bitcoin is since it has been used as ransom payments for the hackers maybe some poeple would reasearch about it. But im wondering on how does this attack would affect to those powerfull minds nor in authority. I think it has giod effect and bad effect since at the first place bitcoin has been used again as blood money for their bad acts. Lets hope bitcoins adoption will not be hit and would get more bad image for this incident.

I don't think that will fall because of ransomware because Bitcoin is most safe money in the Internet market where no one can Beat car security system because the security of Bitcoins like military .
System programming of Bitcoin working up on the algorithm sha256 , And also there are many altvoins which are based upon the Sha algorithm , so they can use another altcoins also .
Well here Bitcoin is currently in the trend to use Bitcoin in online easily , so they are using Bitcoin only , here a strange report came from the medea that most.of the people can't send Bitcoin to the ransomeware attack because they don't know about Bitcoin .
So here I think is bitcoin has a better opportunity to become famous again to the Ransomeware attack .

I would agree that though this is an illegal activity, it will somehow help bitcoin to be more known to others and thus could have a positive response in terms of its price. It is sad that owning bitcoin has come this far - that someone has to make this ransomware to earn significant amount of bitcoin.

Yes,the media has mentioned only a little about bitcoins.

Already,bitcoin is blamed as it is mostly used for illegal purposes.Bitcoin getting attention is good,but getting attention in such crimes is not good for bitcoin progress.

if there smart they keep exchaging  between bitcoin and altcoins for  a LONG ASS TIME .Then it time to get cash out do it with westen union with a fake   id .we thinks still even if they do all that unless they get some goverment  help cough cough Russia/Urkaine there be caught eventually .They always make a mistake somewhere

Interesting article on the topic:
https://cryptoinsider.com/wannacry-ransomware-attack-warns-cyberspace-risks/

I thought the same but as mentioned the issue here is not bitcoin, so it would be a waste of time to try and halt Bitcoins movement to halt such attacks. I mean the last i checked they had made $20,000 from the attacks, which is minimal compared to the billions banks in Germany, UK and other western countries helped launder for Russian Criminals. And that is just one case, Dollars and banking systems have done a lot more to hurt people than Bitcoin. I mean you can look into phone operations where they call old people and get them to send money to people using MoneyGram or WesternUnion that operate on cash. Noone in such situations blamed the banking system, cash itself or anything else. I dont see why it should be different here.

This is not sad, just a phase in a technology that has to happen. In the beginning the internet was seen as a place where only paedophiles and

money launderers operated... {That was what the media said back then} Look at where the internet has grown since then... No financial system

can operate without it.... and this will happen to Bitcoin too... or with other Crypto currencies. They use Bitcoin because it is the most widely

used... but other Alt coins is more anonymous... and they might move over to that, if people start using these Alt coins.  ;)

I first remember hearing about bitcoin, at least enough to get me to actually look into it, back in 2012 because of a Linode bitcoin hack.

Maybe some people will look into bitcoin because of this, now.

Many many people will. And they will see that bitcoin is not evil. They will see many positives about it so this is very good kin the long run.

how did you manage to recover your files mate?
did you just paid them what they are demanding?

I am afraid bitcoin is already on the edge of its existence. Aside from the multiple spam attacks that caused hundreds of thousands of transaction pending in the mempool while the consensus was far from being reached, bitcoin is breaking. Coupled with the ransomware attacks that placed bitcoin to a corner and was being called a hackers money it is only a matter of time before it will be replaced by other cryptocurrency if the problems get worse.

To by pass ransomware, you need to connect your harddisk into another computer so that you can back up all your important files (wallet files/saved password/seeds). After back up, formatting the hard disk and re-installing new OS might save you from paying for ransomware. But it may need 3 to 5 hours of work and you must need another desktop for back up.

Yeah, that is the very simple step on how to make sure that we will not pay anything of our own money. Always do a back up because back up is a must in everything that is related in technology not only wallet but also our private files in our desktop and laptop. Not all the times we are safe because there will be always unexpected things.

Dont try to create FUD and panic. There is nothing wrong is Bitcoin and its existence. The Hackers attacked a vulnerability in Windows OS not related to Bitcoins and they demand payment in bitcoin only.
If attackers asked the funds in US Dollars will you say Dollar ended ?

oh well, now i know what is the possible solution for such attacks. but im just curious, ransomware will give you time to pay right? and waht if in that span of time you havent manage to back up and format your hard disk, would that mean that you will never be able to get or recover your files? is that so?

There is a positive impact on bitcoin more than the negative impact, prior to this people already viewed bitcoin
as being used for illegal trading in the dark market but this recently hit which is the RANSOMWARE  will increase the
demand of bitcoin and will make it more popular, it is for the publicity as well.

There is a simple way without taking of the harddisk is to make an dual boot USB (Linux Dis) like that you can have access to your files before the executable of windows process --> I did test this with some other VIRUS with RANSOMWARE I didn't but I m sure it will work as charm :)

I have got some news that ransomware not only targets home users; businesses can also become infected with ransomware, leading to negative consequences, including:
1. temporary or permanent loss of sensitive or proprietary information,
2. disruption to regular operations,
3. financial losses incurred to restore systems and files, and
4. potential harm to an organization’s reputation.

Paying the ransom does not guarantee the encrypted files will be released; it only guarantees that the malicious actors receive the victim’s money, and in some cases, their banking information. In addition, decrypting files does not mean the malware infection itself has been removed.

source : https://security.berkeley.edu/faq/ransomware/what-possible-impact-ransomware

this is the reality that Bitcoin using currently for many such are not legal .
While gambling is a simple thing of money making platform and also for fun with your money but in reality the use of Bitcoin in se cases is not fair , like few of using it for drugs deal and fee of using it for the rasomeware attack money making idea .
But here I am thinking that the owner of a bitcoin I mean the network Bitcoin that is blockchain.info will do something make a new rule for the use of Bitcoin in legal way of use KYC verification of wallet of every Bitcoin wallet .
That will results into the legalisation of the Bitcoin fully for everywhere  .
And in the future no one will use the Bitcoin for bad things .

From what I've read, it gives you time to pay, but your files are encrypted and locked immediately, so if you haven't backed up before the attack, you're out of luck.  Your files will be lost.

Of course if you have a backup from before the attack, you could reformat your hard drive and restore the backup.  And hopefully, then, update your OS to a newer supported version (like Windows 7 or 10) and apply all updates and patches.  Or better yet, do a clean install of the new OS, update it, and then restore your files as-needed from your backup.

I think dual boot will not show the primary drive content. I tried when my windows system crashed. I recovered data from other drive but the primary drive I connected my harddisk to another computer and took backup. Maybe yours plan also workout, but I am not sure.

Lol, so you think ransomware would make bitcoin more popular by extorting people? Well, t certainly wouldn't be in any positive way.
I found that most news articles that I've read about this randsomware attack didn't even mention Bitcoin in any negative way.

I've seen more positive news than negative news about Bitcoin, at least in the mainstream news I follow.
Just wait till it goes over $2000, the focus will be on the price and not about the criminal aspects.

It's not good to see this type of happening that the demand is because of this negative activity. And people especially those victims that doesn't have an idea about bitcoin will think that they are a victim of this bitcoin ransom. Though I believe that the high demand is not just because of this ransomware issue, there's a lot of good news that are coming out because of it.

Yes before attacking this ransomware only the price was so high already. after this attack just it increased $100 to $200. So this is not ransomware attack effect. More people are started to using bitcoin and in market demand is increased, so the price is increasing. And because of ransomware attack, the price is increasing is just a false news.

just read somewhere that some companies (or their it departments) are keeping btc on hand for just such occasions.  ::)

makes sence i guess, kinda hard for a company that knows nothing of btc to get them and figure out how to send them on short notice i would imagine.

For this can be seen from many redemption transactions coming from russia, this ransomware generates a big disaster for companies, hospitals and government agencies. Thank goodness, microsoft windows quickly respond to this by making the latest updates. Hopefully the future is better again so as not to tear down the bitcoin prices are experiencing a nice rise.

They use bitcoin so i don't see how they would steal their banking information unless the victim has stored his information on his device, then that's a different case. And yeah there is no guarantee that you will be able to de-crypt your files. The extortionist might ask for more after the victim sends his money.

To be honest, ransomeware wont impact btc much. They used to use different kinds of prepaid cards before bitcoin. Did it had any kind of impact on those? nope.

Yeah, bitcoin is pretty much dead - while price reached $2000.
Pick and altcoin of your choice and make it popular - you will observe that Litecoin, Ethereum or other coins could be spammed and there will be network overload.

Bitcoin will survive, it is not like we can't have upgrades, soon miners will learn that longevity of BTC is far better goal that temporary profits from high fees they are collecting now.

This is just stupid argument. It is other way around - bitcoin is used by hackers because it is popular, not because it is the best money used for fraudulent activity.
We have more anonymous coins: Monero, Zcash.

Precisely, bitcoin is completely at variance with this ransomware attacks. Why are we arguing in the first place? There were a lot of similar attacks in the past when Bitcoin wasn't in existence and I want to ask if it had any negative impact on the already existing fiats? So why should it affect Bitcoin negatively?

Negative or positive publicity is still publicity for bitcoin. Just remember that its not bitcoin's fault. The hacker just used at as mode of payment to them. And I don't think it will have any impact at the current price of bitcoin. It even soar more after the ransomware virus has infected a lot of pc's around the world.

There is a potential negative for bitcoin when people hear that it is being used by thieves via ransomware. However, the positive is that more people are hearing about bitcoin which can increase interest.

The positive is always accompanied by the negative, that is the law of this life, there is not anything perfect. Bitcoin creates many advantages for humans, which is also why it is exploited.

I think that in the short time period the price of bitcoin might go up, but I think the bad aftertaste will kick in later. I think that people behind the ransomware have no good intentions for bitcoin.

All of the coins that will be gathered by the blackmail will be dumped at one time to crash the price. In my opinion the bad story for the dump is already devised.

ransomwre make everyone know bitcoin, then everyone see the price chart of bitcoin and now they are start investing at bitcoin  ;D

Everyone know about Drugs and the fact that it makes really a good fortune, is everyone drugs dealer ? Sure nope, that what I meant,even with its "dark" reputation bitcoins still allowed but if such act repeat to much, they will put Bitcoins officially on illegal case and in that time I m sure the price will rise and the number of holder will fall to null.

at my place job, all email providers was shut down.
gmail, yahoo etc etc.. no one can use the personally address. A situation like this obviously cause a lot of problems with daily tasks.
You can image in a public service what can happens...
BTW bitcoin become one of the top argument @ cafè bar, every one talked about it... like a new "payment method"  :o

The focus shouldn't be on Bitcoin alone. Crooks also use National currencies  for high profile crimes.
The current debate is more like the US gun debate. Like Bitcoin, am in favor of gun ownership for self defense. The idea is to be able to defend yourself incase of a quick attack and also to defend yourself from rogue governments. There always sould be alternatives whether we like it or not. Bitcoin/CryptoCurrency is a great alternative to local currencies... in the end you will have a way to hide your wealth incase your government is overun by criminals(like ISIS was trying to do in the Arab world) plus have an alternative source of income

☞I have this to say to all journalist,media & news agency who donot research properly before jumping into conclusion!

The increase in exchnage rate of bitcoin started in (march/April) just before the attack in may!Yes, more people buying this coin to pay for the ransom could lead to a slight increase.

Now,do they think that such crime willl cease if, bitcoin cease to exist? the anwser is NO!

☞It's important for IT companies, research team & bitcoin trader's join head in order to fix such loophole otherwise, the same hacker's behind this mess will one day exploit the bitcoin niche using same mechanism.


Thanks

As per recently article mentioned by theguardian. New version of ransomware is locking the computers and asking for a 300$ payment to unlock their content.

People also should understand that bitcoin is more valuable when compared to other currency, so the person who hacked is asking in the form of bitcoin means this person belong to the country where he can exchange them into his local currency easily. If the person demands in any other form govt's will easily catch him.

Bitcoin will definitely not fall because of Ransomware. Actually, the price will increase because people will have to buy Bitcoin and give it to the hackers if they want their files back.

They are taking the advantage and attacking with the pump of bitcoins price. I'm not really tolerating this act that they are doing. Because it's better to work with all your efforts and putting dedication on it without harming other people. But well these hackers are really taking the advantage while giving others a disadvantage.

I bet i could found out these group of hacker's behind this mess if, i'm given access to most of these sophisticated tools used by security agencies.

Just before this whole incident, i stumble into one trader on ebay. He was selling btc at a very competitive rate.

I bought some btc from him.The coin i bought was less than 0.1 bitcoin . He's selling this at a good exchange rate that i had to buy again from him again on ebay but, unfortunately this time his account has been restricted. Few hour's later he contacted me with a private email in order for us to conclude this transaction outside ebay. I did and everything went on smoothly.


NOTE : if, there are any developer's,IT's with the intention of developing app to address & fix the current security loopholes, it should be people who has indepth knowledge of the of this vritual currency as well. Otherwise, such security measure could end-up not providing lasting solution!

Thanks

It didnt impact a lot, for sure bitcoin will be considered as criminal coin, but bitcoin become more popular and for the bitcoin users, it didn't bother a lot, the price is still good and people still believe in bitcoin and the bitcoin transaction rate still high, so bitcoin still has a good future

In summary wannacry brought mixed responses. Government might be thinking negative as bitcoin brought hackers a way to get safe money but many people come to know about bitcoins as media made enough coverage on bitcoins this time. My local newspaper wrote an awareness article on ransomware which covers what is bitcoin too.

But by considering the current rally of bitcoins, we can be sure bitcoins system not finding any hard impacts due to recent hacking attempts. I wish issues of ransomware to get fade away asap when some antivirus coming up with strong solutions.

My friend told me about this ransomware that target lower version of OS/operating system because it can easy affected by the virus. i see someone  feedback on some of my group in facebook about this and he is victim either nothing download or do, some say its from spam emails, also this virus can have backup so even if you format your Personal computer it has chance to be same.

My friend studying about this problem on how to prevent and kill without paying the ransom, he though disabling "SMB" on your windows might be the solution to be safe right now..

Recent ransomware attack only reinforced the narrative of bitcoin haters that it's a money for criminals, but I think general public don't share this view, as there are many positive news, increasing interest from governments, banks and investors. I believe that many people who are interested in Bitcoin are young and skeptical enough to not buy this propaganda from haters, so the negative impact of ransomware attack should be very small. It also should be dwarfed by the recent $2000 touch, which is far more important than some hackers.

The advantage always comes with difficulty, bitcoin has a lot of advantages to grow, but it also has consequences stemming from bad guy behavior. We have to accept that.

How will Bitcoins fall due to ransomware if you are indicating that it can get a bad name cause of money was demanded in Bitcoins or that bitcoins account will be hacked and people will loose money? If the former than earlier it was demanded in Fiat, Fiat is yet used by all. If the former it's difficult to hack into Bitcoins, it's highly secure. So I don't think there will be any effect whatsoever in the Bitcoin market.

Too bad for bitcoin. But I guess we can't do anything but to accept the fact that bad people will always find a way to exploit a system to take advantage just to satisfy their needs. I still believed that it won't cause a dent on bitcoin. It will just add fuel to the general public to see what bitcoin is and what it can offer for them. And for those against bitcoin, skeptics will try to attacked it because of the incident.

Bitcoin is not going to fall for such a small thing, this creates bad publicity of course, but think of it this way, windows machines are prone to get virus unlike mac and Linux machines and yet people keep using windows despite all the disadvantages, bitcoin will be the same, bitcoin will be used for bad stuff but most people will use it for good.

Also see that Ransomeware has no negative impact on Bitcoin, We did not seen even the slightest dip of price in bitcoins on the Ransomware virus. We are now seeing the all time high price of bitcoins and i doubt it will ever fall down. Bitcoin has been no longer a pump dump coins which cannot be dumped on negatives news or anything like that.

But many people who don't know about the bitcoins with this incident it has created a bad impression about the bitcoin in those people mind. Even many of my friends were also talking that bitcoins shouldn't be allowed in any countries because mostly used in these kinds of bad things. It is quite hard to explain to those people.

Perhaps you are thinking wrong about this issue. Bitcoin is not hacked, it's safe, we can trust it. But, it is exploited by hackers, they use it to make illegal money.

Well, so far your theory remains a far cry from reality

Bitcoin has been rising and it will likely continue to rise in the future. If anything, it proves its robustness as a decentralized (read free of government control) currency. Using it for extorting ransom is a sort of real life stress test, but that doesn't mean in and of itself that this is the only field of Bitcoin's application. I'm in no case justifying such acts (i.e. encrypting file systems and then demanding money to be paid to decrypt it), but, as to me, the effect of that would be positive on Bitcoin in the long run. In other words, don't shoot the messenger, he is doing his best!

I think that impression that bitcoin is made just for criminals is made deliberatly. Its like a message that cryptocoins are good because they are anonymous, but bitcoin is bad because of ransomware. Someone is trying to hold the bitcoin at bay. Probably its the same people that are pumping the ripple to new sky high.

Made a very big impact. It rose and will keep on rising.   :D
This is just my theory but I think it did a bad publicity and also a good one.
Yes others sees bitcoin now as a bad investment but what did that news break through?
Those people who didn't even know what bitcoin is suddenly got an idea to what it is.
With the publicity it was introduced to them and now others might be researching to what bitcoin is.
It did help. Thanks Ransomware.

there is a positive impact from RANSOMWARE like many more people not know bitcoin because ransomware who know bitcoin.. but negative impact is make the bitcoin user being restless

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/21/north-koreas-secret-cyber-warfare-cell-unit-180-likely-have/

north korea is thought to be the origin of this wave. do you think they have an account on btc-e?

it is true that many people have known about bitcoin thanks to the ransomware. I do not thinkt that there is any negative impact here. Only positive impact such as the increasing of Bitcoin users in this month

There is no doubt the bad publicity has an effect and some people will try to avoid bitcoin because of it, but the effect is not going to be very big since as we are speaking the value of bitcoin keeps stable, also eventually these people will realize how mistaken their ideas are as soon as bitcoin beings to gain mass adoption.

Reading through the history log the ransom made less than 100K although in Bitcoin if the hackers leave the addresses untouched they will likely appreciate in value.
https://qz.com/985093/inside-the-digital-heist-that-terrorized-the-world-and-made-less-than-100k/
A good reminder that Port 445 the one for networking is a trap and I agree the attack was about something other than money like getting the whole world to invest in crypto or at least be aware of it again.

(Did like this part in the article though “Then after I ask her 10 times she says pay just for the sheer fact that I leave her alone finally,” he said.)


The three bitcoin wallets tied to #WannaCry ransomware have received 296 payments totaling 48.86359565 BTC ($101,348.96 USD).
Well the world can watch the Bitcoin price rise as well seems like a plot.
https://twitter.com/actual_ransom

thinking that the ransomware taking fee especially on bitcoin make a huge impact that attract more user to know about bitcoin
i dont even think that bitcoin will fall, it will gradually increasing because ransomware attack globally and get the top attention at news

I do not want to say that you are wrong, i mean it could happen that this will be start of more and more ciber attacks. But i do not think that it is untracable. There is always a way, and not to speak that if it becomes a problem in the future, it would be dealth one way or another. Bitcoin has made a long way to this point, and it will be hard to die after so long.

impact of ransomware is able to make business systems that use bitcoin will work harder to develop security in maintaining user accounts, when viewed from business side it's interesting because the antivirus product or the latest system will continue to be developed, I see a conspiracy on this even though not completely certainly.

Honestly, I didn't think of that myself

But why not, after all? If people had been extorted some monies in US dollars, would they start feeling disgusted by the American dollar? I'm inclined to think that they won't. So why should Bitcoin be different? Well, in fact, I agree that they might feel like that, and some of them would certainly feel that way for some time, but when the dust settles and the sun shines bright again, they will certainly calm down and come to understand that Bitcoin as such is not involved, but they have already learned about it, and what's more they already know how to use it (at least, how to buy and send bitcoins). Wouldn't that be good and what is bad in that?

Till the ransomware (or "hack") isn't in the millions nothing will happen and the government wont react.

Governments, regulations, and hacks (like Mt Gox) are the ones that really impact BTC the most. My biggest concern right now are China's authorization for BTC withdrawal, and the duration + high fees of BTC (some rumors going around)

as it look now it prove that investors don't care at all about any thing outside of their daily trading activity or they are not the same people, i mean it's not like the people affected by this malware are the same that are pumping now bitcoin...

actually evidently, this malware is bringing more attention to bitcoin, and making it even more famous, and it's not that bad as many think

This can give bad turnouts to bitcoins since im pretty sure that business establishment who's been hit by the said virus will think badly for bitcoins and that could give bad impact to bitcoins upgrading state. But in this case and matters well maybe the thing we should do for now is to watch for latest news and events from it maybe we can gather some info that can help us point on when does bitcoin well gain more rythm.

They certainly do care

But this FarCry event is evidently not something which would attract their attention for longer than a few second timespan. If some exchange got hacked (say, Bitfinex again), that would certainly raise a stir in the Bitcoin investment establishment. If anything, 50 bitcoins is not a big deal really, so people affected by this ransomware cannot be pumping Bitcoin right now unless they buy up bitcoins in massive amounts for future payouts, of course (as the saying goes, if it rains it pours)

I think that if anything, that attack made a little scratch in bitcoins public reputation.
So in my opinion, the attack would have brought the bitcoin price even down, not up.
To my big surprise, most media did not even mention that the ransom should have been paid in bitcoin.
They were more focused on the attack itself, the reports about how bitcoin was involved in this were really small.

Well maybe there is no direct impact of Ransomeware to bitcoins but indirectly a lot has been talked about and discussed. Maybe people are arguing  that if bitcoin is declared a major currency all over the world, attacks like this will be more and world will not be a safe place for storing the money. People will feel unsafe with their digital coins as anyone can hack them or demand in form of a Ransom without ever knowing who the thief was . :(

Remember that all NSA / CIA spy and hacking tools were released into the wild. One of those tools soul purpose was to leave breadcrumbs behind that it was whatever entity the agencies wanted it to look like. Don't you think that it's rather convenient that it is traced back to North Korea?

Trust no one or nothing in the hack. For all we know it is the US Govt doing it. There is no way to tell at this stage.

As to me, Bitcoin came out completely unscathed

And I don't quite understand how this attack would have brought the Bitcoin price down when we only saw the price hitting new ATH's all the time. Right now the price is over 2,100 dollars per coin already so any such claims are heavily detached from reality. In fact, the reverse can well be true, i.e. people have heard about Bitcoin being used by successful and prosperous hackers and started buying it themselves. Apart from that, why would media want to emphasize Bitcoin as ransom, if this is what everyone expects nowadays anyway? Really, would they draw any special attention to it if dollars had been demanded as ransom? It's the same with bitcoins already, there is no more sensation in that

There are many different ways available other than bitcoin for the payment in such acts. Ransomware wasn't been able to ruin the image of bitcoin. It was just a mode of payment and nothing else. On the other hand, at my place people didn't really know about bitcoin. Due to this hacking attack, people come to know about bitcoin. Many people were busy in discussion. Even I made some people invest in bitcoin too. So, on the whole nothing has happened to the image of bitcoin.

I think it has a big impact in bitcoin bro. Though in ransomware they read about bitcoin then that will to sort of negative thinking again about bitcoin and others also getting curious of bitcoin so they are trying to learn what is bitcoin but now i think nothing happens with bitcoin unlike in the firstweek of ransomware because the price of that time it dumps but now it is really high huge so now i think ransomware is not affecting bitcoin

Perhaps an increase in bitcoin prices currently affects one of them from ransomware.
Now bitcoin is increasingly being used by people. A negative thing that produces a positive thing.

I think its a positive move for bitcoin because of ransomware people are trying to understand what is bitcoin and how it works . of course bitcoin price will increase because people are doing lots of transaction through bitcoin for decrypt the virus . But negative side also is there people are relating ransomeware such a bad thing with bitcoin even though its just a payment mode

The Ransomware been going around for years yet people within the news don't really talk about it much because they want to scare people into thinking that there is some sort of new threat within the nations. If people wanted to test the Ransomware with their computers then they will see that something like that could get patched though I would recommend anyone with a virus to just purchase a different computer because the computer is already affect with the virus and i prone to happen again if the person does not know where it came from.

I think ransomeware was makes the popularity of bitcoin is grow up. So many people were looking for articles about ransomeware wich bitcoin is also there.

It may make Bitcoin more popular but it definitely won't be for the right reasons if that's all that they learn Bitcoin is used for. I personally really wouldn't want to see Bitcoin being known as the "ransomware currency" but it can't be avoided considering the nature of it all. I don't really know what else there is that can be done beyond hoping people find interest in the currency itself through them learning about it from news articles on ransomware.

Well, that was the point of the new Ransomware software. People wanted to make the Ransomware involved with Bitcoin so Bitcoin could get much more popularity and within the world. Just like the worm virus spreads really fast to many computers, the information of the Ransomware virus spreads fast among the news and rumor's going around.
Someone could have used the Ransomware to only accept regular fiat payments yet they decided to integrate Bitcoin into it instead so the price of Bitcoin would go up.

But also it could put a stain in Bitcoin's reputation though if they are not that open-minded enough that anything can be used legally or illegally that depends on the hand of the user together with its motives and intentions as to where they will use it. Though it is true that it made Bitcoin popular but still some just asks then lose interest so we can say that the level of interest and curiosity should reach the enough requirement that would drive them to enter the world of Bitcoin which if we say that the Bitcoin is on the digital world, online world, in the internet then some if not most think that it is a scam which is a manifestation of close-mindedness.

That ransomware hardly had any negative impact on bitcoin, if at all. In fact, the price has been soaring even higher after this incident and the bitcoin investors just seem to ignore that news altogether. Instead, they are focusing on holding and saving more because of the potentially higher prices even before the year ends.

Well this is going to impact bitcoin of course, but i do not think that it will impact it too much. Those people who made it simply used the moment of bitcoin worth, and made some money out of it true criminal. But there will always be people who will use criminal act to make some money, and as always people will find a way to fight back so... its nothing to worry about. Bitcoin will survive :D .

I think that in the last years nearly every government has made a statement on how they want to treat bitcoin.
I do not think that a software attack will make a change in the minds of governments.
Of course bitcoin, or other crypto currencies as well, they are perfect for using them as a way of ransom payment in such attacks.
On the other hand, many attacks are not based on ransom. Some are done because the programmer wants to show he can do it.
Others are led by governments. In these cases regulating/banning crypto currencies would bring nothing.

The recent ransomware attack was actually just a publication. Whats funmy is how you react to it, even that 15 year old kid from india were able to solve the equation and was able to brought it down.

That doesn't mean that ransomware is more popular than bitcoin nor they will ever be.
Bitcoin is so big that it doesn't care about this ransomsh*t.

What do these million of users are doing? We are here to show them that bitcoin is a good thing. It's just being taken advantage of.
I always tell my friends, co-workers and even my boss (I'm in the IT department) that bitcoin was not made for the sole purpose of ransomware or some sort.

As of today, some of my co-workers became my co-bitcoiners too.  :)

i do not know more impact of ransomware for bitcoin but after news spread about ransomware the bitcoin price increase . in my country indonesian bitcoin have been reach $3390 this is amazing  for me..

The mainstream media has made a bit of Bitcoin's regret in reporting their ransomware attacks and it does not matter - only other crimes people can commit with Bitcoin if they want to.
The attack was in my opinion not the best path to bitcoin.

Well i think it will have an impact on bitcoin in general, and when i say in general i mean what some people think about it. People that know what and how bitcoin work, they will have same thinking because they want to make money on bitcoin. But as i said it will have impact on those people who do not know what bitcoin is or heard about it for the first time.

After days passed from the attack till now I think it wasn't that big even the income that the hackers got from users that paid to recover their files wasn't really something big if we compare that with passed attacks, am I right ?

No you caan say that as after thw ransomeware attack bitcoin gained a heck of popularity and because of this the price literally went to moon , but yeah the price came back to normall and has been falling from past 3 days. I'm totally fine this as now majority of the world isbaware of bitcoin and that's what matters the most.

Maybe the ob good thing in this all bad ransomware situation is that the hackers haven't earned that much, people were not paying to them. At least not that much as they have expected tow get. And I hop at least some of the victims have learned their lesson about the importance of protection and having back up.

Right, the mainstream media is just making issues too big to get the attention of the people who actually thinks that this is right and would pass to other people again until yeah the news are getting crazy. I guess you arent affected as well am i right?

Ransomwre makes everyone know bitcoin, then everyone see the price chart of bitcoin and now they are start investing at bitcoin :D Good luck to everyone. :D

You wouldn't complain about the insecurity of cash if a bank was robbed, why blame a blatant cyber crime on bitcoin? Just because it may be easier, doesn't mean it is bad. You could make ransom in any currency, bitcoin is just the easiest for them.

Luckily, the media isn't saying 'Bitcoin is encrypting your computer!' in this round of attacks (WannaCry).

As far as I know from Wikipedia more than 230,000 computers in over 150 countries were infected and the hackers were paid around $126k. Since they were demanding $300-$600 it means that not more than 420 victims paid the ransom.

The recent Ransomware attack has caused a lot of problems and people not knowing about bitcoin are facing problems like how to buy bitcoin, what it is ,its worth etc.Since the ransomware attack has spread to more than 50 countries its causing the bitcoin's value rise. Eventually this  may lead to either fall of bitcoin or lead bitcoin as the future currency

Ransomware attack is not the accurate and single reason for the rise in value. And Ransomware has caused lots of issues recently to all kind of private and public organizations, but it also had let many people know about Bitcoins. Some are interested to know more about it, whereas some are thinking it as crime related, and not at all interested.
But, in my opinion, Bitcoin will not fall for this reason, for sure.

I don't think so, there are other methods to get payment out too first, also this isn't the first even malware but just one that got higher attention.

I think this isn't something for us or the bitcoin world to worry about, the anti-virus/malware should do there jobs better.

Doubt it will bring an end to BTC or the like, the most important aspect will be security and antivirus companies improving their security and systems, and I don't think it's impossible to track down who did this, Law enforcement agencies in the US are quite competent.

Unfortunately Rasomware used bitcoin to collect the illegal money which made many people to argue and think against the bitcoins. If they had seen with cool minds, they could have recognize that bitcoin has very little to be blame for Ransomware hack, but few are claiming as if bitcoin is the only responsible behind this attack. >:(. giving a wrong point of view that if there was no bitcoin, there can be no Ransomware possible.

This point should be clarified

I simply can't fathom how the hackers cannot be held responsible or bear less responsibility if that is your point. If this piece of ransomware attacked some military facilities (NSA included) or Microsoft servers exclusively, that point might have made some sense (though this is debatable as well). But it attacked indiscriminately, and its victims are institutions which didn't do anything bad to these hackers. In fact, some of them might have been (or would be) receiving medical treatment in one of the hospitals that fell victim to this attack. In other words, it is like putting the blame on a gun manufacturer or even the inventor of powder for a crime committed with a gun. Indeed, in this case the NSA should bear the responsibility as well if they are directly or otherwise involved, most likely for negligence. Personally, I would be more interested in the investigation against Microsoft itself, i.e. whether they don't deliberately leave backdoors in their so-called software

Windows was the main target and Windows 10 simply resets and reinstalls too quickly too deal with paying these guys.  The amounts of ransom asked for are too high and the price of a new hard drive is too low.  The last set of ransomware that we saw here wanted more than $1000 in Bitcoin to unlock people’s computers.  For $50, you can get a Walmart 1 TB hard drive and have yourself back up in less than 1 hour.  Last time I looked $100 could get you somewhere in the 10 TB range, at least 5. 

I think the reason not many people were concerned about bitcoin is simply because bitcoin is not the main story here, the story is this virus that has taken hostage the computers of many people and business, bitcoin was secondary to the story.

I don't think that such attacks would hurt Windows

Those who care had stopped using it long ago (at least, as their primary platform). Those who don't will continue to use this system until they literally lose thousands (if not millions) of dollars and petabytes of data. Apart from that, if you have a system image, it doesn't actually matter how fast the system can be installed since apart from the system itself you would have to install the environment, i.e. all the programs that you need for your daily work, while restoring a system (disk) image depends entirely on the speed of the hardware and typically takes half an hour (or even less)

The Ransomware situation felt like it was just a begining to see the possibilities of promoting Bitcoin to the mainstream. Once the attack happened, the mainstream media was all over it trying to get a culprit and when they couldn't find anything that they could blame it on they went ahead and pretty much blamed Bitcoin for being the reason for the attack.

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*QaQZQLqqtu7eP4LEF0Xfgw.jpeg

This attack happened back in 1989 without Bitcoin of course yet there is not many people talking about that.

That was in 1989 when Internet was not so much popular as it is now. Also who knows this news was wide spread at that time, but now that we are in 2107, no one remember that old time.

Bitcoin will not fail because of ransomware. Though it gave bitcoin a bad name.

Exactly, and bitcoin was used for such activities even before. The only difference now is that it got more publicity.
But people have to understand that bitcoin wasn't created for criminal activities it was missused like anything else, like any fiat currency and that it can be used for many good and positive things. And that is why we need more positive promotion.

It affected a lot but maybe for bad, The last biggest attack the target was windows and especially windows xp and other old windows version.

And this is the main reason why Microsoft released some updates/patches for windows xp and others even though they have stopped supporting these versions of windows.

The backup that you mentioned isn't much secured if you have attached the external drive at the moment when the windows get's infected because it encrypts the external drive too.

While what you say is true, how much are you willing to pay will depend on how valuable is the information on your computer especially if you don’t have backups, when you take that into account for some it may be worth to pay the ransom to get back your information.

I feel by Ransomware, people able to know about Bitcoin worldwide, as there is too many people who just don't know still about it

This doesn't look very plausible overall

What is the purpose of attacking old versions if no one is using them anyway? How many folks are now using, say, Windows 98 or ME? Windows XP seems to be still used on old computers, but their number is gradually diminishing due to natural wear and tear. Further, Microsoft said they would be releasing security patches for Windows XP as well even though the general support for this system is over for a few years already. Regarding saving your system image to an external drive, you can use incremental backups, so you can always revert to a version not yet encrypted by the ransomware

Is that the reason why the bitcoin rose a lot soon after the ransomware appearance?

Seems like it is since there is not much news about anything else that would make the price of Bitcoin to go up. If Bitcoin is that much affected by the Ransomware situation then the price of Bitcoin will get much higher when more people decide to purchase Bitcoin because there’s regular people purchasing Bitcoin and not just criminals anymore.

If Bitcoin goes up to $30,000+ then the price is likely to keep going up since the news about will be everywhere.

You may thing that windows xp is an old version and not used by people but you are wrong, you may use the latest windows 10 with the latest updates.

But remember that there are lots of computers in the world that still operates in Windows XP and in Windows Server 2003 and these are mostly in supermarkets and in public institutions if you didn't know this, so why not attracting these people where they will pay if their important files will get encrypted and the spread of the virus will be very fast and very effective.

And because of this bitcoin has been popular recently and I highly think that it affected the bitcoin price and increased the value of cryptocurrencies in general.

The media exaggerates whatever impact crypto ransomware has on circumstances.

Its long been known that 80% or more of retailers on the internet are compromised or h4xed in some manner.

Whether businesses with an internet presence are damaged in fiat or crypto isn't the most relevent topic at this point in time.

Agreed. Thing is that it didn't even affect personal computers that much. Most of it was businesses that were not bothered to upgrade to the newest patch aka using an older version. Another thing is that they kept calling it the bitcoin random ware when in fact bitcoin has nothing to do with it apart from being the payment method chosen by the criminals. The biggest impact I would say is the bad image brought over bitcoin. I'm sure that in the end some sort of free solution will be found, in fact I think there might already be a free decrypted. Not sure though.

I don't think so. From my point of view, the media (online newspapers, TV etc.) has done nothing but PROMOTING bitcoin. I read daily in the newspapers how good bitcoin is and why we all should use it. Even with the recent ransomware attack, I can't say that the media focused on bitcoins, but rather how we all should stay safe on the internet and update our systems.

Media cannot promote it directly, because there service rate gets degraded. When something a decentralized system is promoted soon a question could get arose against the concern channel. As stated the didn't focused on bitcoin, but the term was used all the time while spoken about ransomware attack. This has made users the intention to know more about it and be a part of it.

I'm using Linux myself

And yes, I think I can safely claim that Windows XP is an old version. Wtf, this is what Microsoft itself says. But I didn't say that it is not used in the world anymore (I specifically mentioned Windows XP in my post to avoid any further confusion), so it seems you should refrain from ascribing to me what I didn't say and making it look as if I actually meant something like that by combining in one sentence what I did in fact say with what I didn't say. Anyway, you may want to read my post again in its entirety since I asked about how many people are still using Windows 98 or ME, not Windows XP. I hope this will help you avoid making such misleading statements in the future

Even Linux and macOS are target of hackers but the number of people that use linux are mostly those that know more about the technology and IT.

Those that use macOS are mostly those that use macbooks and not all of them are aware how to stay safe from viruses and from ransomware attacks so they are not 100% safe as well.

The bad part is that this virus is spread-ed very fast and in big institutions and when they hear that this happens only by "bitcoin hackers" then of course that this news will have a bad impact into bitcoin.

Unfortunately people know a little or nothing about crypto currencies they try to learn some and usually about bitcoin when media start to speak about that. Ransomware and other criminal activities is a good example of this. Therefore there are no many chances explain to them that bitcoin is a currency like fiat and commodity like gold. This task is extremely difficult for middle aged or bigger people who are negative to innovation and technology too. Maybe next generation will be more friendly and familiar to bitcoin usage.

Yes, those who do not know about the bitcoin in the first place, they when hear about the Ransomware can get bad impact about the bitcoins and its related digital currencies.

Bitcoin is barely mentioned by the media when news of ransonware comes up. I don't think it's a problem. It's just like how lots of illicit trades are done with cash. Does this really affect people's outlook on fiat? Not really.

Education and popularity is key for Bitcoins success.

I don't think it was more prominent effect to the market cost truly. Media didn't sensationalized bitcoin, what some other media reports says the danger of the virus is genuine, and not about bitcoin. Or, then again could be increment the cost of bitcoin it you take a look at it since individuals who has been influenced may tend to purchase to pay the payment

But there is a positive impact that can be felt. Bitcoin is becoming known to many people. Indirectly various elements of society who know ransomware will recognize bitcoin as well. This can not be ruled out. Ransomware has introduced bitcoin to the wider world.

but i still think that ransomware has introduced bitcoin to the wider world. maybe it did, maybe it did not.
i think this is also because of the media. just like here in our country, media have news about ransome ware but didnot tell anything about bitcoin. they only told about the victims and the needs to pay. but no bitcoin is being said

After ransomware attacks, in fact the value of bitcon continues to increase. Yes, you are right maybe after the incident (ransomware) the government will definitely do an action that we ourselves don't know yet.

Could we claim Android users as Linux users too?

If we consider Linux as Linux kernel (just because there is no canonical Linux operating system, Windows style), I think Android users could well count toward being Linux users too. But in no case can we think of them then as more literate technology wise since they are basically the same users who are using Windows on their personal computers and notebooks. I don't like Android much, but I have heard only about a couple of viruses there, and needless to say, they didn't raise as much noise as many Windows viruses customarily do. In fact, they didn't even manage to spread in any significant degree

Sometimes negative publicity can increase sales when a product or company is relatively unknown simply because it stimulates product awareness. In my opinion bitcoin falls into this category of products, it has thrived on negative publicity, and since wannacry ransomeware the bitcoin price has skyrocketed. It will take something more than this to kill bitcoin, maybe if banks and governments try hardest to stop trading with it...that would definitely have an impact.

Bitcoin is barely mentioned by the media when news of ransomware comes up. It's just like how lots of illicit trades are done with cash. Does this really affect people's view regarding fiat? I don't think so.

Mainstream attention and popularity is the key for Bitcoins success. I think advertisements and social media can be used to reach to the outside world about Bitcoin.

Bitcoin helps out a lot of hackers as they can be paid completely anonymously. However, there are many scams involving fiat as well. Also, ransomware hasn't really had any impact on Bitcoin.

This also might be the world's attention, bitcoin is felt is used for the crime. as happened in ransomware, so that today many people who think bad about bitcoin. They consider bitcoin a way to support illegal acts.

I think RANSOMWARE has some impact into bitcoin , Actually one of my friend has been victimize by that and he approach me because he want to buy my bitcoins because he will pay the virus.
Now he is interested using bitcoin and I am teaching him right now. Im happy that my friend uses bitcoin . And I watch tv on the date that randsome ware is spreading , Randsomeware has been flash on the news and bitcoin was mention in it and I see that they are not telling bad information about bitcoin.

I think bitcoin fall because Ransomware virus, so what is Ransomware?

Ransomware is a type of malicious software that blocks access to the victim's data or threatens to publish or delete it until a ransom is paid. While some simple ransomware may lock the system in a way which is not difficult for a knowledgeable person to reverse, more advanced malware uses a technique called cryptoviral extortion, in which it encrypts the victim's files, making them inaccessible, and demands a ransom payment to decrypt them.

In a properly implemented cryptoviral extortion attack, recovering the files without the decryption key is an intractable problem - and difficult to trace digital currencies such as Ukash and Bitcoin are used for the ransoms, making tracing and procescuting the perpetrators difficult.

Ransomware attacks are typically carried out using a Trojan that is disguised as a legitimate file that the user is tricked into downloading, or opening when it arrives as an email attachment. However, one high profile example, the "WannaCry worm", traveled automatically between computers without user interaction.

Ransomware won't be a negative thing to bitcoin in long term, but it would at least make people and security websites more vigilant to the risk of ransomware generally, This isn't the fault of users or bitcoin in the end and even not the fault that got hacked, but the one distributing it.
Even with Mixer's, I think the FBI and other agencies will track the one who made it, seeing their determination in cases like these.

the ransomware attack did bring bad publicity and most importantly, a very hostile base of those hacked and forced to pay BTC. that's something that can't be avoided, but I don't see it as the end of bitcoin as a currency. The police and agencies will target the hackers as well as the circulation of these coins.

Well I didn't mention android but I don't think that android users (mostly mobile and tables) should not be counted that are using Linux.

But in this case it means that they are target of hackers more than other platforms like ios and windows phone as it's easier to get infected even if the app is in the google play store.

But ransomware as far as I know infects only PCs and servers not the mobile phones and tablets.

I think that these kind of viruses affect the bitcoin only for a bit and then it's forgotten until the next attack.

Should be grateful to who made this virus. With this virus people so know,
- what is bitcoi?
- How much Bitcoin Price
- Why does the Virus Maker ask for a ransom with BTC instead of dollars etc?
Please answer yourself. Modern society is more intelligent

It depends on the media that you follow, in my country the ransom ware was mentioned but bitcoin was not, but if on the media you follow bitcoin was mentioned profusely then that may give the impression that all the media does the same and that is not accurate.

The issue of ransomware does not have a significant impact on bitcoin prices, the use of bitcoin in ransomware cases will not make people do not believe in bitcoin, it's just a person. I think that makes the bitcoin price down is a very high bitcoin price and some people take advantage of the price, do not worry, we know that bitcoin prices will go back up, it will even be much higher

The recent ransomware crisis won't impact bitcoin that much, the fact the hacker asked for bitcoins wouldn't, in my opinion, have any serious backlash on bitcoin itself, but the future of browser and security software will change completely IMO, even blocking suspicious files without asking the user would be a key step.

You won't find a lot of ransomware on Linux desktops or servers

And I won't be surprised if you won't find any at all. But this is irrelevant since this is not what your point was about. Basically, you claimed that Linux is only (well, mostly) used by geeks (and that's why there is no ransomware for it) which is obviously not the case. It is used by essentially the same folks which use Windows (or MacOs, for the record). But somehow we still don't see packs of viruses for Android, even though the number of Android users by far exceeds the number of Windows users. How come?

The recent ransomware has made positive as well negative impacts over the entire world. In the form of positive outcome the bitcoin is known more and some has started to experiment it. In the other way people have fixed that bitcoin is the one that has got negative part higher than positive.

the only positive from this is that more people are aware of how important updates and patches to your OS are. not to mention regular offline/offsite backups.

the fact that bitcoin was specified as payment was largely ignored, generally it was only mentioned in passing.

Virus ransomeware that gives up the world, making countries in the world afraid of the threat, they attack government-owned computers and ask for bitcoin ransom, while bitcoin becomes popular because bitcoin as a means of payment to restore the virus. So the world starts to recognize bitcoin

Linux is a system where viruses doesn't exist or viruses can't easily get in because it was programmed to be invulnerable to viruses and other harmful stuffs in your computer. And this ransomware is out of the topic here since it can't penetrate the system, and what you have said is indeed true. Maybe he thought that the population of the android users is larger than the population of windows users.

Ransomware creates fear among windows user especially the Windows XP OS. Recently Microsoft release an update for windows to prevent this exploit from windows older version of OS. Also, IMHO it creates awareness of bitcoin also, since the Ransomware developer are collecting the payment in bitcoin.

People are always free to speculate but I can't say confidently that Bitcoin motivated the ransomware attacks because there are a lot of trillions of dollars and other fiat currencies in value hare world that could have motivated the attacks than a few billion market cap of Bitcoin.

This is not necessarily correct, there are viruses for Linux but those viruses fail to spread for the simple reason there are many programmers auditing the code and watching for any vulnerability, so there is not much of a time for the virus to spread and damage Linux systems also you will need to allow for the virus to install as root.

I think the impact of ransomeware is troubling the state of the world in the world. Making the world even more careful and adding to the protection of the system against viruses or hackers. And for bitcoin itself there is a negative impact that people think bitcoin is a digital currency used for crime. Positive is the more famous about bitcoin in society so many people know him.

It is not only that

Viruses (as they appear in Windows) are not very widespread in Linux due to a lot of factors (better system security overall, inconsistent kernel api, more strict default policies, more variety between Linux systems, etc), but we shouldn't forget about rootkits. I don't think that we can call them viruses since they aim at opening root access to the system typically from outside, for example, via ssh (or otherwise) and meant to allow someone to conduct arbitrary tasks as opposed to "general purpose" viruses in Windows rigidly programmed to do only one task (or group of tasks)

Let's not get out of the topic too much but we both know how much vulnerable is android compared to other operation system.

Many phones that are very cheap come pre-installed with malware or viruses (if you didn't know, google it a bit)

The impact is very high to the bitcoin and I think this is one of the reason people didn't joined bitcoin before as they thought is used only by hackers.

Could you post a link actually proving how "vulnerable is Android compared to other operation system(s)". Personally, I don't know that, and I haven't heard anything about that either. I guess there would be a lot of noise if what you say had any substance (given literally billions of Android devices out there). I read about a couple of wannabe viruses for Android which couldn't even spread before they got eradicated. I don't like Android much but that has nothing to do with its vulnerability or security

And I ask you to avoid using phrases like "we both know" in the future

Well, after somewhat a month of the ransomware attack we can see that the price of bitcoin continues where it was, it had a slight fluctuation last week, but that surely was not because of the ransomware attack. Bitcoin will always fluctuate because of it's volatile nature, but these attacks, might not bring down bitcoin at all !

This type of crime is going to follow the same fate from me when it comes to talking about it, you can commit this crime with Bitcoin, or you may commit it with other items such as Western Union, Bank Transfer, CASH, Prepaid Cards, AND SO ON AND FUCKING SO FORTH. So it's not like Bitcoin is the go to for this sort of thing, I'd actually think it's one of the harder ones for the criminals to pull off as they're going to need to cash out with Bitcoin and if they'd not want to lose money on it they're going to need to go through KYC shit.

So, no impact in the least. The media may throw one or two stories up about this, but nothing to really change anything.

I agree with you in part even though your language was harsh at some point but there's indeed no need to tag Bitcoin with this ransomware attack because like you said every currency in this world is coveted and people can perpetuate crime in order to get a good sum of it at their disposal.

You are right, month have passed already and i cant really feel the effect of that ransomware incident which we cant tell if it helps or decreased bitcoins price but well we do always knew that price will always increase as the time goes by. Affected or not the most important thing here that we are witnessing still bitcoins growth potential.

All of us have seen those movies with gangsters, mafias, drug dealers paying a deal with suitcases of cash money. This was the reality, even before the 50's. And cash money still does exist so I'm not too worry about the future of bitcoin. Off course the bad guys use it but don't forget a large mojority of good people use it too.

Whatever will happen the bitcoin price will still going up because the bitcoin is a limited currency so day by day the price of it will go up because day by day many people are investing and knowing it so by that the demand of the people are increased and the price is going up.

Every new technoligies that will come to places in our world it can be use by all people as long they got access to it whether they use it to their good or bad intentions, it is a matter of your consience if you really want to take advantage of the less fortunate or less knowledgeable people.

Bitcoin is a new payment platform that can be use by terrorists if they want to but the old fiat currency is being used to before. There is no perfect technology though it is just depends on how and who will use it.

I don't know how many of you observed this when the ransomware virus attacks and the hackers demand their money in the form of bitcoins. This news published on TV news channels all over the world. This is the first TV ADD for Bitcoin. We thought it effects on bitcoin price. But this attack increased bitcoin users all over the world. 

I've seen more mainstream media segments on Bitcoin than ever before, so it must have had an impact. Also, many people were affected by the ransomware, so all of them heard about Bitcoin. Most will have a negative opinion of it for sure, but some will look into it more.

It does not have a direct impact on bitcoin but to the people who are victims of ransomware and to the people who have heard of it.  To the victims of ransomware they have the need to buy bitcoin to pay the ransom for their important files. To those who have heard of those incidents its either they will sell their bitcoins if they have one or if they are not a bitcoin user they will become pessimistic and will begin to believe that bitcoin is the money of the fraud and hackers. It may bring some negative feedbacks on bitcoin but it cannot shake bitcoin as a whole since bitcoin has a strong support from people, especially from bitcoin enthusiasts.

RANSOMEWARE has caused a global crisis, and its consequences are extremely terrible, especially for businesses and government organizations around the world, I'm sure the money that this hacker group gets is enough. Let them live for life. Thankfully it ended quickly thanks to a young man. And we can see, bitcoin is the means that hackers use to store money. This will cause negative thoughts for bitcoin.

It can be a bad image to Bitcoin, but Bitcoin has always been involved in crimes especially known to be related in Dark Web Transactions even in Craigslist. Ransomware on the other hand created another bad image to Bitcoin but in turn also gave curiosity to many people to Bitcoin, lately I think the timing was good but Bitcoin's price actually increase right after the Ransomware news if I am not mistaken which means Bitcoin still has demand or and increasing one. One bad news won't effect Bitcoin's economy as a whole.

Most newbies and laymen connect bitcoin to ransomware and think that bitcoin is the sole reason ransomware was created.
They don't know that ransomware is a much older concept that cryptocurrency, in the past instead of bitcoin or altcoins payments ransomware creator asked for:
vouchers, pre-paid card numbers, or premium text messages/phone calls bitcoin only simplified and standardized ransomware payments, nothing more.

It is not the fault of the ransomware creators that 85% of the globe use a weak operating system like Windows which has a lot of bugs and open ports from where the attackers can attack with anything they like. Ransomware victims were all Windows users so why blame it on bitcoin and not on Windows ? All Linux users were happily working and nothing happened to them. The impact did had the opposite effect, it made people more aware of bitcoin and increased their numbers, consequently making the price go up to more than 2.000 dollars and staying there.

Sensible people will think that the use of the bitcoin in the ransom does not affect its image.

nice tv ads lol