<story><title>Ransomware gangs are complaining that other crooks are stealing their ransoms</title><url>https://www.zdnet.com/article/these-ransomware-crooks-are-complaining-they-are-getting-ripped-off-by-other-ransomware-crooks/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hnlmorg</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Worse than that still, imagine one of your affiliates is stupid enough to target inside Russia. You need to keep the Russians happy or all of a sudden trial or extradition become likely outcomes.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I read somewhere that a lot of these attacks are orchestrated by Russians because the Russian authorities will turn a blind eye as long as such attacks don&amp;#x27;t hit domestic targets.</text></item><item><author>rocqua</author><text>I thiink I can see why Revil added the backdoor. It&amp;#x27;s not to steal ransoms. It&amp;#x27;s to prevent too juicy a target.&lt;p&gt;There have been reports of crews stating &amp;quot;we won&amp;#x27;t hit hospitals in covid&amp;quot;. With this backdoor, if your customers hit a hospital, you can hold your promise.&lt;p&gt;Even worse than hospitals (from their perspective) is agitating the American intelligence services. Hit too many pipelines, or similar high-news high-impact targets and &amp;#x27;national security threat&amp;#x27; is your new name.&lt;p&gt;Worse than that still, imagine one of your affiliates is stupid enough to target inside Russia. You need to keep the Russians happy or all of a sudden trial or extradition become likely outcomes.&lt;p&gt;At the same time, once you have the opportunity, why not use back door for some more money.&lt;p&gt;Glad to see that they still aren&amp;#x27;t fully cooperating like legal businesses yet.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>m12k</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s indications that the Russian intelligence services are intertwined with organized crime. The oligarchs get help laundering money out of the state, the intelligence services get untraceable money that they can use to bribe foreign assets and the organized crime syndicates get paid for their money laundering services and get a free pass from the authorities as long as they don&amp;#x27;t inconvenience those in power too much. Seems like one of the most impressive rackets in history.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ransomware gangs are complaining that other crooks are stealing their ransoms</title><url>https://www.zdnet.com/article/these-ransomware-crooks-are-complaining-they-are-getting-ripped-off-by-other-ransomware-crooks/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hnlmorg</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Worse than that still, imagine one of your affiliates is stupid enough to target inside Russia. You need to keep the Russians happy or all of a sudden trial or extradition become likely outcomes.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I read somewhere that a lot of these attacks are orchestrated by Russians because the Russian authorities will turn a blind eye as long as such attacks don&amp;#x27;t hit domestic targets.</text></item><item><author>rocqua</author><text>I thiink I can see why Revil added the backdoor. It&amp;#x27;s not to steal ransoms. It&amp;#x27;s to prevent too juicy a target.&lt;p&gt;There have been reports of crews stating &amp;quot;we won&amp;#x27;t hit hospitals in covid&amp;quot;. With this backdoor, if your customers hit a hospital, you can hold your promise.&lt;p&gt;Even worse than hospitals (from their perspective) is agitating the American intelligence services. Hit too many pipelines, or similar high-news high-impact targets and &amp;#x27;national security threat&amp;#x27; is your new name.&lt;p&gt;Worse than that still, imagine one of your affiliates is stupid enough to target inside Russia. You need to keep the Russians happy or all of a sudden trial or extradition become likely outcomes.&lt;p&gt;At the same time, once you have the opportunity, why not use back door for some more money.&lt;p&gt;Glad to see that they still aren&amp;#x27;t fully cooperating like legal businesses yet.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ianhawes</author><text>It has been common knowledge for years that most malware and ransomware look for the presence of a Cyrillic keyboard and exit quietly if it’s found.</text></comment>