Someone of a cynical persuasion may think it was only a matter of time until ‘outsourcing’ came to the cybercrime business. While this inevitability may be debatable, the early success of the model certainly isn’t. Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), for instance, has been such a boom that there are expansive studies into the trends and changes solely impacting RaaS transactions.
In fact, in late January the Department of Justice unveiled a campaign — and charges — against the NetWalker ransomware group, which were operating as a RaaS offering. The case, in which healthcare organizations were targeted and the first defendant was seized with $500,000 in cryptocurrency, shows the success and maliciousness of this outsourced economy.