According to a report released on Oct 30th, 2015 by Cyber Threat Alliance, there is every likelihood that one cybercriminal group is collecting all the cash reaped from Cryptowall 3.0.

Cryptowall 3.0 is an invasive very classy malware which is difficult to detect and which has spread its tentacles all over the world.

In order to understand the impact of Cryptowall 3.0 and to also keep track of its progress, you should check out this visual dashboard which is managed by Cyber Threat Alliance. Below is a summary of what the report included;

• Cyber Threat Alliance was formed last year (2014). Its main objective is to study and analyse existing and emerging threats with partners such as Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Symantec and Intel Security.
• Cyber Threat Alliance (CTA) gave a suggestion which is also backed by evidence that Cryptowall 3.0 which is a vicious malware infects your computer. It then encrypts all the files and subsequently demands a ransom from you.
• CTA has done a thorough study of the latest version of Cryptowall 3.0 which made an appearance earlier this year. CTA said that this malware prompts you to pay in bitcoins to an address owned and controlled by the cyber criminals for the bitcoin e-wallet.
• There are several groups and families of ransomware out there and Cryptowall 3.0 has proven to be a menace to both business enterprises and consumers. Once your computer is infected all the files get jumbled up with a complicated encryption.
• From the moment you become a victim, there is nothing much you can do. However, you can protect yourself by backing up all your files in a safe backup location that cannot be accessed by the attackers. If attacked, you have little wiggle room as either you have to pay the demanded ransom of anything between $500 and $10,000 or just accept to lose everything they have for ransom.
• All bitcoin transactions are recorded in Blockchain. It is therefore possible to analyse all the bitcoin transactions made. However, the attackers know this and they have created a different bitcoin wallet address for every victim. The bitcoins are then passed on to multiple other accounts hence making the trail hard for the security researchers.
• Customers’ computers’ are attacked in waves. The criminals identify the waves by allocating each one of them an ID. This is a very similar strategy used in digital marketing campaigns.
• Much as the tracing of the movement of the bitcoins proved to be hard, CTA discovered that several primary accounts were shared between campaigns. This helped CTA to put a case that all these amounts stolen using Cryptowall 3.0 were going to a single group of cyber criminals.
• In one single campaign called Crypt100, more than 15,000 computers from all over the world were affected. The amount the criminals raked in was $5 million if not more. CTA gives an estimate of $325 million as being generated through Cryptowall 3.0.

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