How Ransomware Evolved Into a Big Business - Ep.256

Gurvais Grigg, Chainalysis public sector CTO, and Kim Grauer, director of research at Chainalysis, review the ransomware landscape. Show Highlights:
their backgrounds and roles at Chainalysis how a ransomware attack works what types of businesses are usually targeted in ransomware attacks why ransomware as a service (RAAS) is a booming business why Kim and Gurvais believe the hacking group REvil is becoming more sophisticated what characteristic of REvil hints that the group could be affiliated with Russia how the RAAS business model works how ransomware payments can be tracked why ransomware reporting has a data problem why Bitcoin is the preferred method of payment amongst ransomware attackers what two factors makes BTC preferable to privacy coins how ransomware groups teach victims to transfer BTC how ransomware groups cash out of their BTC how counter-terrorism tactics can help fight ransomware attacks how the Department of Justice may have partially recovered part of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware payment what tools and strategies governments can and will use to battle ransomware Thank you to our sponsors!
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Episode Links

People
Kim Grauer - Director of Research at Chainalysis
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberly-grauer-a9501144 Gurvais Grigg - Global Public Sector Chief Technology Officer at Chainalysis
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gurvais-grigg-b1027a153/
Chainalsysis Ransomware Data
https://go.chainalysis.com/rs/503-FAP-074/images/Ransomware-2021-update.pdf   https://go.chainalysis.com/rs/503-FAP-074/images/Chainalysis-Crypto-Crime-2021.pdf   https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/applying-counterterrorism-strategies-to-ransomware   https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/eastern-europe-cryptocurrency-market-2020
Ransomware Attacks
Kaseya https://decrypt.co/75246/what-the-revil-ransomware-attack-means-for-crypto https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-03/ransomware-attack-us-revil/100265656  Colonial Pipeline https://ciphertrace.com/ransomware-seizure-blockchain-analytics-helps-us-authorities-seize-over-2-million-in-darkside-ransom-paid-by-colonial-pipeline/  https://www.elliptic.co/blog/us-authorities-seize-darkside  JBS Holdings https://www.wsj.com/articles/jbs-paid-11-million-to-resolve-ransomware-attack Other
Chainalysis  Twitter: https://twitter.com/chainalysis Website: https://www.chainalysis.com/ Who is REvil?  https://fortune.com/2021/07/07/what-is-revil-ransomware-attack-kaseya/ https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/revil-threat-actors/  Combating ransomware: https://securityandtechnology.org/ransomwaretaskforce/report/  Why Gurvais joined Chainalysis: https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/gurvais-grigg-chainalysis