Hackers are arguing in underground forums: morally or economically

The pneumonia epidemic caused by the new coronavirus is currently erupting worldwide. For many people, hospitals and medical institutions are the greatest hope for survival.

However, some hackers use computer viruses such as ransomware to attack hospitals and medical institutions, trying to make these institutions pay high ransoms when they are completely forced.

Previously, Bleepingcomputer had contacted some ransomware developers, and a small number of ransomware developers promised to stop attacking hospital medical institutions during the coronavirus epidemic. However, there is still much ransomware that still treats hospitals and medical institutions as a target.

Source: Group-IB

A Singapore-based network security company Group-IB survey found that some hackers currently believe that using new coronaviruses to launch cyber attacks is morally wrong.

This type of attack mainly includes the use of new coronaviruses as gimmicks and decoys, the production of malicious files with special purposes, and so on.

Some hackers are initiating proposals in underground forums to stop other hackers from using new coronaviruses for malicious purposes, such as ransomware attacks.

These hackers believe that hospitals and other medical institutions are already very busy at this stage, and they should not interfere with their emergency work at this time.

There are even hackers who said that it was a shame to still attack hospitals and medical institutions at this time, so many people died, and the way to make money is not the only one.

Of course, this idea may be because the epidemic affects not only these hackers but also their family and friends, which seems to arouse their sympathy.

Unfortunately, there are still too few hackers and ransomware developers who decided to stop the attack. There are still a large number of hackers who are trying to launch cyber attacks.

The investigation also found that the epidemic not only caused huge economic losses to the real society but even hacker underground, which was relatively easy to make money, was also hit hard.

Security companies have seen many hackers who provide DDoS, spam, and malware start discounting sales because no one buys these services.

However, security companies believe that this is not good news, because the sharp decline in hacker revenue may cause them to launch more attacks or even retaliatory attacks to increase revenue.

Therefore, whether it is a hospital or a medical institution, a government or enterprise unit, or an individual or family user, they should be vigilant to prevent hackers from using the coronavirus to launch attacks.

Via: bleepingcomputer