CryptoWall ransom Trojan has infected 625,000 systems, says Dell SecureWorks
The conclusion of all this is that ransom malware is probably a business that is slowly eating itself. It still infects plenty of systems but fewer victims are paying up. This is probably a combination of victims not believing that payment will make any difference (decryption keys are often not sent anyway), people defending themselves with backups and the difficulty some have in knowing how to acquire Bitcoins.
But before digesting that apparently good news, it's worth also considering the incredible effort that was required to disrupt CryptoWall's iconic predecessor, CryptoLocker. That took numerous agencies and security firms and months of work by which time its victims were at least $3 million lighter.
In the UK, Dell SecureWorks' number reveal that CryptoWall has infected at least 40,000 systems, the majority of whose owners won't have reported this to UK police. This repeats the dismal pattern of CryptoLocker, a threat that was ignored for the longest time. In this game of cops and robbers the cops aren't just behind the robbers' getaway car but miles away in bed.