I was still in elementary school when I began to question the logic of a sign outside a discount grocery store in Topeka, Kansas. It read: "The more you buy, the more you save."
Now the hackers behind SamSam ransomware want you to believe a similar line of logic.
Sophos' Paul Ducklin talks about this in new research on the SamSam ransomware variant:
"... the crooks have settled on a new mode of operation. Instead of blasting out one copy of the malware out to thousands of potential victims over a day or two, the crooks blast thousands of copies of the malware onto computers inside a single organisation, pretty much all at once…and then, almost casually, they offer a 'volume discount' to fix the entire company in one fell swoop."
Here is an example of the SamSam price setting code from the research. All amounts are in Bitcoin.
And here is the breakdown, Ducklin says, if you are translating to U.S. dollars.
"At the equivalent of $7,200 per PC, but 'just' $45,000 to decrypt your whole company, it’s almost as though the criminals are doing you a favour!"
So there it is. The more SamSam ransomware decryption you buy, the more you save. Just like the groceries at that store in Topeka, Kansas.
