Cisco System s Talos security unit said Tuesday that it has pulled the plug on a pernicious group that encrypted people s computer files and demanded payment to decrypt them.
Talos threat research Nick Biasini said his group had disrupted a group using the Angler Exploit Kit to target 90,000 victims a day, generating more than $30 million annually in ransom.
Cisco determined that an inordinate number of proxy servers used by Angler were located on servers of service provider Limestone Networks, he reported.
The crooks had used stolen credit cards for servers on Limestone s system. The company pulled the plug on them when Cisco contacted it, and cooperated with security researchers, according to a report by Reuters.
The Talos unit collaborated with Level 3 Threat Research Labs and OpenDNS to peer over the shoulder of the scammers and see how they operated.
Then Cisco broadcast Angler protocols and mechanism so others can protect their communities, Biasini wrote.
This is a significant blow to the emerging hacker economy where ransomware and the black market sale of stolen IP (intellectual property), credit card info and personally identifiable information are generating hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Photo: Computer crime illustration (Al Phillips,The Charlotte Observer)
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