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You found the backup wrap up your go-to podcast for all things

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backup recovery and cyber recovery.

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In this episode, we talk about ransomware as a service.

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My co-author, Dr. Mike Saylor, breaks down exactly how this criminal business

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model works and I do mean business.

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We're talking HR departments, project managers, affiliate programs, and yes.

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Someone managing the payroll, we covered the franchise model.

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How botnets get rented.

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Who's buying these attack privileges and why?

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The person who pays for the attack, it might just end up being the patsy.

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This is a must listen.

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By the way, if you don't know who I am, I'm w Curtis Preston, AKA, Mr.

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Backup, and I've been passionate about backup and recovery for over 30 years.

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Ever since I had to tell my boss there were no backups of the production

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database that we had just lost.

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I don't want that to happen to you, and that's why I do this.

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On this podcast, we turn unappreciated admins into Cyber Recovery Heroes.

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This is the backup wrap up.

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Welcome to the backup wrap up.

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I'm your host, w Curtis Preston, AKA, Mr. Backup, and I have with

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me Prasanna Hard Stop Malaiyandi.

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How's it going?

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Prasanna got somewhere to be.

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I think we should call you, uh, Curtis.

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Likes to chat a lot, Preston.

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I'll take it, I'll take it.

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That's like, it's the whole reason why I got a podcast.

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So I can, not only do I get to talk a lot, I get to listen to myself talk.

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That's why I say the podcast is a perfect thing to do if

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you like to hear yourself talk.

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'cause you get to do it.

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the exact opposite.

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Yeah, exactly.

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That's why you don't edit and you don't listen.

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You don't listen to our podcast, right?

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I do watch the shorts every once in a while, but yes, I do not listen to

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Yeah,

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episode.

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I don't think I've listened to a single full episode.

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yeah.

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no, I take it back.

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I did listen to two episodes, both of which did not include me.

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It included when I was out.

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It included Ben

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Oh, the backup, the beer and backups.

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Yeah.

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s and backup.

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where he got drunk while doing a podcast.

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That was the best, best podcast ever.

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All right, speaking of best podcast ever.

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How's it going, Mike?

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We got Dr. Mike Saylor on with us.

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It's going well.

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Hey guys.

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So, you know what?

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I've never, so we, we've never met in person, and so I, uh, I, I have no idea.

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Like, uh, like how tall you are, how tall are you?

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Six two.

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Yeah, he's taller than me.

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Prasanna, so now I'm gonna add him to my list.

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how it feels normal.

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So we had my 60th birthday party, uh, on Sunday, and Prasanna actually flew

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down to, to go and, uh, he got to meet a number of my other local friends.

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And let's just say, uh, he was not as tall as my other friends.

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Yeah.

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I had two friends that were six five.

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Yeah.

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And Carlos was probably what, over six foot?

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And now?

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And I'm six.

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I'm, well, I used to be six foot, um, old age, but, um, yeah.

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So anyway, well welcome to the podcast.

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So we're, um, this week.

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There, there was something that came up in a couple of episodes

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ago, which I don't think we went in depth enough, and so I thought

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we'd do an episode just about that.

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So let me set the stage a little bit.

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We talked in a previous episode about Crypto Locker and how that, that enabled

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that technology and things like it, right?

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So we started with Crypto Locker and then there's a number of other, uh,

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bad guys that looked at that and went.

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Went based on that model of asymmetric encryption and strong encryption.

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Um, the problem really with that is that, you know, if you, if you're a

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threat actor, this is complicated stuff.

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Um, and so I, I think a lot of people.

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They saw the money that people were starting to make with ransomware and they

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wanted to get, they wanted to be a part of it, but they didn't know how to do that.

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Does that seem like a good way to set the stage, Mike?

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It is, and there's a risk component there too.

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They didn't, they didn't want to take on all the risk.

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Yeah.

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Can you speak about that a little bit?

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Sure.

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And, and that's kind of when, when cyber crime became somewhat democratized.

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You know, back in the day it was, you know, one person wrote the, wrote the

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malware, uh, did the vulnerability assessments to find the way in, or

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wrote the email or delivered the device, you know, whatever it is.

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They were, they were involved from the development, the

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delivery, and the execution.

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And whether there that was, uh, you know, the execution of that was.

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Contained to the, to the victim, you know, like a denial of

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service or an outage or something.

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Or it was more ransom or, or extortion related, where they're getting paid.

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you, back in the day, that was all one person or a group

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of people doing all of that.

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and so through deregulation, I mean, uh, democratization of, of

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cyber, uh, you, you now have these.

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Threat actors that specialize.

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So you've got the guys that, that just write the code.

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You've got the people that just, you know, uh, uh, trade in, in access.

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You've got the people that are really good at, um, ex exploiting

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vulnerabilities and gaining access.

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You have the people that broker in the data.

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Uh, have the people that, uh, that.

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Develop and manage the, the botnets that, that these bad guys use to, to,

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uh, as the, the launchpad and the command and control for their, their attacks.

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Uh, so yeah, all those are different businesses now.

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Right.

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And so getting into like, if, if you just woke up today and said, I'm gonna

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start doing ransomware, then you've gotta become an expert in all that stuff,

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Right.

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Do they also have like HR and all the

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Yeah.

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Well, the bigger ones do.

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Uh, so the more people you have, especially the, the different.

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Uh, the different skill sets and now you've gotta have a project manager.

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Uh, and then you've gotta have HR for dealing with, 'cause the project

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manager is gonna be like that person.

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I can't deal with that person.

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I need someone that knows how to deal with people.

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And so you've got hr, uh, you've got payroll, uh, you've got

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someone to manage your finances and maybe even your investments.

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You've got security, uh, bodyguards and physical security and even, even your

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own cyber team to, to, to do the cyber for you, you know, for your organization.

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'cause other bad guys are gonna attack you and.

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enforcement's looking for you.

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And so now you've got

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mind

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media people and, and PR campaigns and agents and it's, uh, it, it can be pro.

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So now you need, you know, there's not a Yellow Pages for who, who can I call

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to help me get into this business?

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Um, so you've got a, you've gotta start networking and, and, you know, getting

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your street cred, your legitimacy, and then you've gotta, you've gotta

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identify ways to get your foot in the door or somebody that can help you.

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Uh, develop that, that business that you're hoping to get into.

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So then if we're talking, um.

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So, all right, so first off, let's just talk about when, when we say ransomware as

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a service, I think it's a little different when, when we talked about it a couple

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episodes ago, it's a little different than I think I originally had envisioned it.

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Um, do you want to describe what, what we mean when we say ransomware as a service?

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There's different flavors of it.

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There's, uh, it's, it's essentially a, you're, you're, you're buying

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into a a point in time franchise.

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You know, it's a campaign.

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And so for, uh, a set amount, let's call it $30,000, you give

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to a ransomware, uh, as a service organization, you give them $30,000.

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Uh, or the equivalent in Bitcoin or some other crypto, you're

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buying a package of service.

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So that is, you know, a million email addresses that, that have been validated.

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Uh, good, good ransomware that's been tested.

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You know, it's gonna get past, you know, x percentage of anti-malware

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antivirus software out there.

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You set or they set the ransom.

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So you know, if you wanna be really aggressive, it can be a higher ransom.

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Or if you want to play the, the numbers, uh, you know,

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statistically and get more, you know.

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more success than maybe you, you go with a lower ransom, but they, they, you, you

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negotiate all this, it's pre-configured.

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Uh, and then they, they conduct the attack for you.

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Uh, and either they can set up a bit, uh, a Bitcoin wallet or wallet or you

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do, uh, and then that's, that's it.

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You, you tell 'em, you pay them the money.

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You tell 'em what you want and how you want it, and, and then you just sit back

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and watch your wallet, collect money or not, depending on how successful it is.

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That's it.

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That's,

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So,

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as a service.

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so.

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That sounds pretty hands off, right?

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For the, for the attacker.

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I guess one question that I have is, so I'm the, I'm the threat actor that, that's

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providing this Raz service and, and this person I'm gonna, I'm gonna attack this

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like, new group of people on behalf of this person who's paid me $30,000 plus.

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I'm assuming I'm getting a cut of the, of the ransom.

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Okay.

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Why if I, if I had the ability to attack this, this list of email addresses, why

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wouldn't I just do that without this person and just take all, all the ransom?

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Because you're getting paid upfront, so any, any

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Okay.

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campaign has an unknown success rate.

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So I could send, I could send ransomware to a million emails and not get a thing,

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Hmm.

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but if you pay me $30,000.

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I've already built, I've already pre-built this, right?

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It's

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Right,

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you know, software, you build software and you sell it a million times.

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Your ROI is huge.

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right.

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So these guys just have a cookie cutter approach to ransomware.

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It's already, they've already put the time in to build it.

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They just copy and paste, and

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Do.

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a minimum, they're making $30,000.

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Do.

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If I kind of think in my head, and maybe this isn't the right analogy,

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but if I think about Amazon.

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Amazon needed to figure out how to scale their infrastructure as a

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business, and so they built out a bunch of infrastructure and managed it at

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scale, and then they were like, Hey, other companies need this as well.

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Let's spin.

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Let's create AWS, and we can offer those same services to those customers

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so they don't need to know all the intricacies and they can do the

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exact same things that we Amazon as a bookstore, as a business do today.

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that kind of the right way to think about this, Mike?

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similar.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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Yeah.

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Interesting.

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Yeah, I, I think, I think

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and.

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what really helps me is that, go ahead.

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Except the bad guys don't maintain the infrastructure.

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It goes away.

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They, they create it on demand and it goes away when it's done.

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So they're renting it from botnet

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Oh, that's, yeah.

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Interesting.

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So they're, they're renting.

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They, what they have is the software and, and the, the process, the framework.

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Yeah.

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And, and then they're renting the, the infrastructure from botnets, because

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that was gonna be my next question is, well, where do they get the hardware on

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which they're gonna run all this malware?

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And the answer is a botnet.

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You want to, again, we talked about it in the last episode.

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Just give a quick de, uh, description of what a bot botnet is.

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So botnet is compromised, uh, computers, endpoints and infrastructure.

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Uh, that the end user's not aware of,

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Mm-hmm.

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um, you know, if you're, if if in the middle of the night your computer just

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starts doing weird stuff, blinky lights and the fan comes on and your utilization

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shoots up, then you've probably, you're probably part of a botnet, uh, unless

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you're getting like a Windows update.

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But, uh, you know, there are symptoms of.

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Uh, but yeah, a botnet is, uh, unknowingly compromised infrastructure that is

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managed by a, a botnet, uh, group.

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That then rents that, rents, rents those resources out based on, on

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your, your request for demand.

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So, you know, there are, there are botnets out there of well over, you know, millions

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of, of endpoints and infrastructure, uh, that you can, you can rent all of

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it and do a, you know, a pointed denial of service attack on, on somebody.

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And so now you've got a million computers, uh, attacking a, a

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single target, you can just say.

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Uh, I need, I need a sub.

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I need a hundred computers with 20 core processors and this much memory and this

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much, um, you know, maybe they're all Windows machines or whatever, uh, to do.

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You don't even have to tell 'em what you're using it for.

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You can just give 'em the specs and they'll carve off part of their botnet,

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uh, and rent it to you by the hour, by the day, by the week, by the month.

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So Mike, just say kind of one thing you had said previously is, okay,

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the ransomware as a service people, right, they're able to be paid

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upfront, right from their customers, and so they're guaranteed something

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versus taking a chance with whether or not they would get a payout

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from doing the attacks themselves.

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If I go back to the Amazon analogy I brought up earlier,

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one thing with that analogy is.

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Amazon.

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The business leverages AWS to build the infrastructure, to

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build their capabilities, and so they're also a consumer of that

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common infrastructure, right?

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The same thing that customers use AWS for in the case of ransomware as a service.

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Those actors, are they also launching attacks sometimes on their own?

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addition to sell selling out their infrastructure, or is it just their

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entire business is now focused on just finding other threat actors to sell to?

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usually ransomware as as a service actors, that's, that's a side business.

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So they're doing ransomware full-time as their their core business, and

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then they've got this little side hustle to make some extra money.

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Interesting.

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By the way, to go back to the Amazon, um, analogy, I, I've never like verified

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this, but what I was told was that.

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Uh, AWS was born out of the fact that the demand for actual Amazon computers, for

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amazon.com changes throughout the year.

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Right?

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Um, that, that basically during Christmas, they had, um, obviously a huge demand.

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Spike.

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and then after Christmas, that demand, uh.

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Tanks.

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Right.

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And the idea, the original idea for AWS was to just sell the

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unused hardware that they weren't using while they weren't using it.

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And then all of a sudden they were like, Hey, I think we're onto something here.

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So it sounds like it the same thing here, where basically they, they're

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selling the, well in this case, again, Mike, I'm really glad that

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you brought that up, that they're not providing the infrastructure per se.

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They're providing the processes to software, uh, the lists, uh,

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but they actually still rent the infrastructure, the physical

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hardware from, from other people.

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Yep.

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Yeah.

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And one, sorry not to keep poking on this, so for, so.

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poke, poke.

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So as, as far as you're aware though, like are there certain

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things that the ransomware as a service people keep to themselves?

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Like, Hey, this thing is very secret or special, and I'm not gonna sell it out to

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other folks who are buying the ransomware as a service offering, and I'm just gonna

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keep it because it's my secret sauce.

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It's the thing that differentiates me as I'm doing my own attacks versus

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all the other people doing attacks.

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Good question.

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No.

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Um, maybe, maybe some of their tactics, uh, but at the same time.

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Yeah, there's, there's no honor among thieves.

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So you could, you could give them $30,000 and a week later they could just say,

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sorry, it wasn't successful, and they could have just done nothing and taken

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Hmm.

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Hmm.

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Uh, but, but at the same time, they're getting paid to, to play.

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Uh, and so they're probably gonna do the campaign and, and see what they can make

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out of it and keep their percentage.

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Uh, but to my knowledge, I don't think that's any different than how

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they would attack somebody directly.

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Yeah, the, this is actually a really good point because I, this came out

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in our previous discussion and I think I'm finally getting, like this is all

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finally settling in and that is that they're different than a SaaS provider

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where if I go and I say, I want.

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A hundred Microsoft 365.

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Uh, licenses, right?

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I'm given a portal.

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I'm given a, an admin login, and I log in, and then I administer 365.

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I'm still not administering the hardware and the, and the infrastructure

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behind it, but I am administering.

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The, my portion of that world, but it sounds like that just doesn't happen here.

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I don't even get a portal.

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I'm just, I, I, like you said, I just sit back and I watch my wallet grow.

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Does that sound right?

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Yep.

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That's, that's pretty common.

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Well, I mean, to, to Prasanna's point, uh, well, and even a point I made

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earlier about risk mitigation, uh, they want to keep an arm's length.

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They don't want you to have access to anything.

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They don't want to tie you as the, uh, the perpetrator who's probably

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gonna get caught, to them at all.

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So they don't want.

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They don't want you to have a, a link or a login or evidence of a webpage

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or a cached view of a dashboard.

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They don't want any of that.

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You're gonna communicate with them through a chat in a, in a, in a TOR network, which

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stands for The Onion Router, on the dark net, and you're gonna negotiate and pay

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everything that way and set everything up.

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And that's pretty much it.

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may, there may be some back and forth once or twice, uh, through a chat.

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Um, but, or a forum.

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But yeah, there's, there's no access.

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Viewing artifacts, dashboard results, anything.

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It's you pay them and you hope they keep their end of the bargain and

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something shows up in your wallet.

Speaker:

Parsing what Mike said.

Speaker:

So why, like, I'm just trying to understand like how did ransomware

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as a service really come about?

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Because it seems like.

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These operators are taking some risk, right?

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Because there is that communication with these third parties or other people who

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want to do attacks who will probably be caught, like you mentioned, right?

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And they are taking all the risk.

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But why would the ransomware as a service like I get, they get paid

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upfront, but it just seems like so much risk to them be offering this.

Speaker:

For potentially not a huge payout.

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Well, it's, it's, it's like, uh.

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It's like running a million dollar company, but you

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still buy a lottery ticket,

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Mm-hmm.

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right?

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So you're still, you know, it would be nice to win the lottery even though

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I've got this profitable company.

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That's what they're doing.

Speaker:

So ransomware actors are making a lot of money, but they're

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still buying lottery tickets.

Speaker:

In this case, the lottery ticket is somebody paying them to run a campaign.

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Maybe it's a custom campaign.

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Maybe it's one they didn't intend to run.

Speaker:

Maybe it was the next one they were gonna run, but they still got an

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extra, however much money it is.

Speaker:

We, we've been saying 30,000, it could be 10,000.

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It could be a hundred thousand, and it could change based on the,

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the criteria from the buyer, right.

Speaker:

The entrepreneur.

Speaker:

Uh, so it, it's like playing the lottery in addition to your day job.

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I would not doubt.

Speaker:

For a minute.

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There's no evidence of this, but I would not doubt for a minute that if you bought

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into this ransomware as a service and the bad guys have your, uh, your, you know,

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your tour, uh, identity so that they can communicate with you, I have no doubt

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that they're posting that over, you know, all over the evidence so that if they

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do get caught, you're the patsy, right?

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So.

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That doesn't sound good.

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And that's how they

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That's not very nice.

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case.

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So you're paying them and they're using you as a scapegoat,

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uh, if things go south.

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Although, I mean, there's, there's argument there too, because if I'm a

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threat actor, uh, if I'm a ransomware actor, I'm using my ransomware.

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Right,

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even though someone's paying me to do the attack, it's still my ransomware.

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So when law enforcement comes knocking, even though they hit them, they're

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gonna go, but I paid for the service.

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And

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right.

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so it's still, it's still tied to me as the, as the developer and, and,

Speaker:

Right.

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that's using that ransomware.

Speaker:

But guys got their, their patsy, so.

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Now, earlier you talked about that there were all these different disciplines

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within that ransomware world, right?

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So you've got the, the initial access brokers, you've got those

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that collect email addresses.

Speaker:

You've got those that you know that are good at lateral movement, um,

Speaker:

and all these different aspects.

Speaker:

Is this where the affiliate model comes into play?

Speaker:

Uh, for sure.

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And so a affiliates are, are generally, uh, threat actors that have been, um.

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Validated.

Speaker:

You know, there's some, they, they've, they've got street cred.

Speaker:

They've, they've looked into you, you're not law enforcement.

Speaker:

They, they don't think you are.

Speaker:

uh, there's also a business model in that.

Speaker:

for example, if I'm a ransomware, uh, threat actor, and I need targets, I need,

Speaker:

I need those valid, you know, uh, good email addresses or credentials to use in

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

Um.

Speaker:

And I know you're a, uh, you're initial, you, you're an access broker or you're,

Speaker:

you're somebody that can get those, right?

Speaker:

Maybe you're, maybe you're a data broker.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

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call you and say, Hey, can we build a relationship?

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So now we're an affiliate affiliates do a couple things.

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One, uh.

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I don't have to pay you upfront in some cases.

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So for a million emails, that might be like $5,000 or, or six or seven.

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Depends.

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so instead of paying you upfront for that as an affiliate, especially if

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you can't show me and it's difficult to do, out of a million records,

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how many of these did you validate?

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You're just gonna go, well, you know, over half are valid.

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I'm gonna go, all right, well, why don't I just make you an affiliate?

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And as an affiliate, you get paid.

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I'll pay you some money for the, for the data, but then I'm also

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gonna pay you a percentage of what we make off of this attack.

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So as an affiliate, you know, there's, there's different, uh, income models.

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I.

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Interesting.

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the benefit to the affiliate for this, though?

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Uh, now, now we're, we're, we're, we're trusted partners and you're gonna,

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you're gonna keep coming back to me for more, for more access and we've

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built this business model now so that you're not at a bunch of money upfront.

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And then I can appreciate maybe a little bit more than, than retail price or, or

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going price for the data because we've got this success model built on the backend.

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Well, and I think that it, it, it's basically, it's sort of a mini version

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of the RAs model, uh, you know, on the back end that basically the, the

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reason is that you got this one person or company or whatever, and they're.

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Really good at getting new valid email addresses.

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And that's all they're really good at.

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They don't know how to break into something.

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They don't know how to send emails.

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They just know how to find emails.

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Right.

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So they're just really good.

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They're like, we do this one thing and so we'll give you, you know, go do

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what These emails, whatever you want.

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Uh, we just want to, we just want to cut.

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Uh.

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another example of an affiliate program in the criminal enterprise.

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Um, you know, let's take a dating site.

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Uh, most females get free access to the dating site.

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so as a female, we can set up bots or, or guys registering

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as females to try and interact

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Right,

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other guys that are paying to be a part of this.

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Uh, and, and the sole objective is to get their personal email address.

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right.

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hey, you know, wink, wink, nudge, uh.

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I like you, let's talk, and over a period of time, there's finally,

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I'd like to send you some more pictures that I can't post on this,

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Hmm.

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platform, you know, what's a good email address?

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And then you never hear from me again because I just took that

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email address and sold it, to an affiliate that does nothing but spam.

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So the affiliate bought emails from me and then.

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That affiliate is tied to a pornography site, and for every, every visit to

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that pornography site, from a, a known, you know, cataloged email address,

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the affiliate gets $25, and that was happening a million times a day.

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Wow.

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That's a lot of porn.

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Um.

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I mean, you don't even have to.

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Create an account just clicking the

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Right.

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Just, oh, just click in the link and they get paid.

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that you're the

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They get paid.

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and this is the affiliate that sent you, gets them the money.

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attribution.

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Right.

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Yep.

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Yeah.

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Fascinating.

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So you talked about.

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This offering ransomware as service.

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we look at the current environment, and I know things are constantly evolving, how

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many organizations are there out there that are offering ransomware as service?

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That changes every day.

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Um, you know, the big ones, there's probably six or so.

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Um, I mean, if you.

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of those, oh, go ahead.

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I was gonna say, if you Google that now or ask gr or Gemini, uh,

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you'll, you'll probably get some that, that started yesterday.

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Yeah.

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So, so, so of these six though, how many entrepreneurs in your terminology are

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there, out there using like these six?

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Is it like of people are using this infrastructure, or is it like millions?

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Well, and, and I, I, I alluded to this earlier, never came back to it,

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but there's layers of, uh, of, um, consumers of ransomware as a service.

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So there's the entrepreneur, you know, Bob in Florida just wants,

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you know, some mailbox money and he has an extra, you know, couple

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thousand dollars to throw at this.

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so that's the.

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We would call those new noobs or script kitties.

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Like they don't know what they're doing, they just, they know how to push

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a button or somebody to do something.

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Uh, so that's kind of bottom level, mid tiers, more technical people that probably

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can put up some safeguards to protect their anonymity and their smart about how

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to, how to manage their cryptocurrency and use it to buy things and pay for things.

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Um, then there's the, the other threat actors.

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Uh, and so maybe, um, maybe my objective isn't ransomware money.

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It, it isn't the, the, the, the crippling of a company.

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It's, I want to extort, I want to extract their data, I want their data,

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Hmm.

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or, uh, I want this ransomware event to be a distraction some other type of attack.

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Right?

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So there's, there's the other threat actor, and then there's

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the nation state actors.

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Uh, so, Yeah.

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Organized government actors, uh, employing these, uh, these ransomware

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as a service guys to, to do, to do their thing for, for whatever they're,

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that'll support their, their bigger plan.

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Yeah, you did mention in the previous episode that I could, if I, if I wanted

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to attack a given company or a given, you know, that I could literally, I,

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I'm guessing that's probably extra a targeted attack, uh, at a company.

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Uh, I could, I can pay a ransomware as a service provider to do that.

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Like you said, if I wanna steal the data or if I just, I just want to cripple them.

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Uh, or if I just.

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I don't know.

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I, I'm gonna steal money from somebody I wanna steal from this company because

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I might, because it might do them harm.

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Yep.

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Yeah.

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Fascinating.

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Um, you know, when you, when you talked about the, um, uh,

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using it as subterfuge, right?

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Uh, I, I, I was thinking about.

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If I remember the what?

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No, no, no.

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I was thinking about the, the, the, the, the Conti group attack of Costa

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Costa Rica and where it, it appears, if I have the details correctly, it

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appears that this giant attack, that the whole thing was subterfuge to, um.

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To allow them to sort of fade off into the wilderness.

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'cause they were, at the time, they were very heavily, uh, there was

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a lot of, uh, heat on them, right?

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There was a lot of, um, you know, government agencies that were after them.

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And so this was a way for them to, to basically fed off.

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So everybody was busy trying to figure out how to fight this giant, uh, attack.

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Meanwhile, the only purpose of the attack was to allow the Conti

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group to sort of fade off into the woodwork and, and all the, the bad

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guys go working for somebody else.

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But, um, it's, these aren't nice people, Mike.

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They're, they're not, uh.

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They're not very respected.

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Uh, you know, they don't, they don't, uh, they're not empathetic or sympathetic.

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Uh, they're not, you know, they're not hardened, malicious,

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like killer bad people.

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They're just, uh, they hide behind the computer and, and they don't,

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they don't know their victims in a lot of cases, so they don't

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Right,

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feel bad.

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right.

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I think that's on purpose too.

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Not knowing the victim, I.

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it's, it, it goes to the, the mentality of, of a lot of cyber criminals.

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They, they're very, uh, in a lot of cases, they're introverted.

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They're usually on the, the, uh, autism spectrum somewhere,

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uh, you know, socially awkward.

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not all of them.

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I mean, there's, there's some, I mean, there was even a Rolling Stone

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article back in the day of, of, uh, a hacker called the Soup Nazi.

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Um.

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He was, he was extravagant.

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He would go to, to parties and flaunt his wealth and his cars.

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And that was, that's, uh, that's, that's, that's the exception.

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There's a few like that, but for the most part, very, very quiet,

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introverted, uh, socially awkward people.

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So the stereotypical computer person that everybody thinks about.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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Yeah.

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All right.

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Well, it's been fun.

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I, I, I like this idea or I, I, I'm glad I, I think I have a better understanding

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now of this concept of, of ransomware as a service that it literally is like, I just

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sort of, I give you money, you go attack people on my behalf, and I get money.

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I don't do anything other than that.

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Right.

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Uh, other than maybe I, I might target you.

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I might ask you to target a specific group of people, but I'm not, it's not

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like, I guess prior to, you know, you discussing it, I had this idea that you

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would provide for me a platform that I would then use to attack people, but

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it sounds like it's not that at all.

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Right.

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Maybe not today.

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Maybe not fair.

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Sure.

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very, all you know, don't, don't look behind the curtain type.

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Don't, you know, don't, don't mind the, the man behind the curtain.

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Just, uh, just sit back and, and wait for the money to roll in.

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Nice.

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off.

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Nice Wizard of Oz, reference there.

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All right, well thanks.

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Thanks Mike for another great episode.

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Thank you guys.

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Thanks, Prasanna.

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You're welcome.

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I.

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That is a wrap.