F-Secure Institute warns that ransomware will continue to grow exponentially unless the government takes action. The government is reluctant to close the virtual currency Bitcoin and cyber infringement has increased rapidly, but the situation will change if the US or China prioritizes law enforcement

Cryptographic ransomware was established as a business model by using the open source virtual currency Bitcoin, and became highly profitable. Bitcoin has triggered online crime, and the number of new breachable malware families has more than doubled each year since 2012.

F-Secure Institute at F-Secure Headquarters in Finland says ransomware's exponential growth will not be constrained unless the government closes anonymous funding sources, unless consumers reach their Bitcoin purchasing power. There are few android apps that you can use.

Sean Sullivan, Security Advisor at F-Secure Security Laboratories, said:

According to F-Secure's 2017 Cyber Security Report, the number of known variants of the ransomware family, which was only one in 2012, increased to 35 by 2015 and increased dramatically to 193 in 2016. ..

The only shackle for ransomware is the difficulty of using Bitcoin
Chinese companies have made significant investments in the huge server farms needed to mine digital currencies. As a result, the New York Times analyzes that 42% of last year's Bitcoin transactions took place on Chinese exchanges. Shawn Sullivan noticed that one of Shanghai's financial indicators, the Shanghai Composite Index, is often correlated with the Bitcoin price index.

While good blockchain technology, which is attracting attention at FinTech and is the core technology of Bitcoin, ensures market visibility, Chinese officials are wondering how It doesn't seem like we are investigating whether they are restricted to the US, while the US government has shown little interest in legalizing crypto for investment purposes, Sean Sullivan said. ..

In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected an application for a Bitcoin exchange mutual fund due to concerns about possible misconduct in the Bitcoin market (*2).

The Trump administration is believed to argue that Bitcoin's anonymity is causing illegal drug trafficking and international terrorism. Crime is always the basis for justifying the new powers of US law enforcement As such; ransomware can also be viewed by the US government as an increasing risk to consumers, the healthcare industry, and local governments in the context of the rapidly increasing risk of cyber breaches from IoT devices. .

Small changes can make a big difference.

US and European government officials can make a big hit on the convenience of Bitcoin by making relatively simple changes. You can change your Bitcoin trading account to have to be tied to a physical address, Sean Sullivan said.

Currently, opening a Bitcoin account in a third party market only takes minutes or seconds. If you make this change, you will need the activation code that was emailed to you before you opened your account. While this does not affect criminals operating outside Russia or China, their attacks are far less profitable.

I don't like Bitcoin exchanges, but given the hundreds of millions of dollars deprived every few months, that's a reasonable change. Unless we do something like this or something similar. The exponential growth of threat-spreading malware families seems inevitable. Shawn Sullivan continues, stressing that urgent action is needed.

At present, Ethereum is trading along the same path as Bitcoin. Now, unless the government develops a strategy to handle digital currencies, things will get worse. Let's do it, said Sullivan.

More information by Sean Sullivan of warning, please refer to the following Bitcoin Friction Is Ransomware's Only Constraint (the only obstacle for the bit coin is to use hardly made it ransomware)

Sullivan's investigation into Spora's customer portal of the encrypted ransomware family shows that criminals send regular, well-planned spam and make new victims, much like a real business. Is seducing the person. And while criminals are flexible in terms of payment deadlines, there is no room for negotiation on payment methods and they must be bitcoins.

You might be grateful that there are at least some restrictions on buying Bitcoin. If Bitcoin purchases were easier, what hinders the growth of the crypto ransomware business model? Malware technology that encrypts data has been in use for many years, but the biggest challenge has always been how to get paid.