The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the law of unintended consequences in a most unexpected way. By publicly backing the invasion, the heretofore most prolific ransomware group in the world inspired a backlash that appears to have temporarily crippled the group’s ability to operate and given unprecedented insight into the world of ransomware operators.
Conti ransomware 101
Advances in cryptography have spawned new types of applications and business models. Unfortunately, one of them is ransomware. Combined with cloud computing, you get an especially virulent variety, ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS). Among the practitioners of this dark art, the most successful in 2021 was Conti, a Russia-based group.
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