Victims of extortion viruses paid more than $ 25 million since 2014

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.