CryptoWall ransom infections spike to 830,000 in matter of weeks
October 23, 2014 – 5:01 PMDell SecureWorks has updated its figures on the number of PCs infected by the awful CryptoWall ransom malware and the news isn’t good – the number of systems has spiked suddenly to 830,000.
The firm’s last statistic in late August was 625,000, itself a large number of infected systems, which means that CryptoWall has boosted its haul of victims by 25 percent in a matter of weeks.
Looking at the UK statistics, Dell SecureWorks estimates that CryptoWall has affacted 40,000 PCs, with 75 victims handing over ransoms to the tune of $47,250 (£29,000), a stark figure that arrives in time for the UK’s Get Safe Online week.
A few days back, the National Fraud and Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) estimated that online fraud is costing UK citizens £670 million a year. Given that very few of the ransoms paid in the hope of getting rid of CryptoWall were probably reported to the national fraud reporting service Action Fraud, this figure is surely an underestimate.
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