🎯 Ransomware has generated about $4.6 million in bitcoin for its distributors

Two Italian researchers from the University of Padua have compiled an estimate of how much money, in bitcoin, has been generated by the various types of ransomware used by cybercriminals.

The researchers believe about $4.6 million has been paid in Bitcoin since 2015, although there is another $45 million that is associated with known ransomware Bitcoin wallets for which they can't quite account, reported the MIT Technology Review. The researchers only looked at bitcoin payments since exchanges made in this currency are public.

CryptoWall, which first came on the scene in June 2014 according to Symantec, by far generated the most income for its creators bringing in about $2.2 million. CryptoLocker was second garnering about $500,000 followed by DMA Locker, $178,000; WannaCry, $86,000; CryptoDefense $64,000, NotPetya, $9,800 and KeRanger, $4,200.

MIT reported that the Padua team also looked at the well-known ransomware types TelsaCrypt and KillDisk, but discovered these made little or no money.

The methodology used to break out the ransom included creating a database of bitcoin accounts associated with this kind of activity since 2013 when CryptoLocker first appeared.

“We found twenty ransomware that fulfilled our selection criteria, i.e., those ransomware: (i) that used Bitcoin as at least one mode of ransom payment, and (ii) for which at least one Bitcoin address is publicly known,” MIT said.