Google, together with Chainalysis, the University of California, San Diego and the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, calculated the amount paid by the victims to the creators of viruses-extortionists. This is reported by The Verge.

The researchers analyzed 34 families of extortion viruses operating since 2014. Most of the revenue was brought by the virus-extortionist Locky, the victims paid developers more than $ 7 million. The earnings of developers encryptors Cerber generated $ 6.9 million, and CryptXXX - $ 1.9 million.

Researchers note that the creators of virus-extortionists learned to bypass antivirus protection. After identifying a malicious application, a signature is added to the anti-virus software for the detected malware. However, modern virus samples can modify their own binary code, and thus, bypass anti-virus protection based on signatures.