Intel Security Scares Ransomware Script Kiddie Out of Business

tdog17 writes: A criminal coder wrote a kit for ransomware that made it easy for others to encrypt victims' hard drives and then extort money from them in order to get the decryption keys. But when Intel Security wrote about the kit — called Tox — the author got cold feet. Now he or she is trying to sell the whole business. “Plan A was to stay quiet and hidden. It's been funny, I felt alive, more than ever, but I don't want to be a criminal. The situation is also getting too hot for me to handle, and (sorry to ruin your expectations) I'm not a team of hard core hackers. I’m just a teenager student,” the coder wrote on the Tox malware site.

Comments

Re:Dear Pukeface

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't want to be a criminal? Well, you ARE one, dearie. Should have thought of that. I hope you spend your entire life behind bars. It will give you time to think about your fail.

Life in prison for facilitating ransomware. Damn, what do you do to your kids when they break curfew, cut off a foot?

Re:Oh I didnt want to be a criminal

[Oligonicella]

There's certainly a moral and ethical difference in engaging in it purposefully as opposed to breaking some obscure laws.

Re:Saturday Night Specials

[AmiMoJo]

Incredibly a captured ISIS fighter was on the radio making pretty much that exact argument just yesterday (BBC Radio 4 PM programme IIRC).

He claimed that he joined ISIS for the money as someone who planned and helped execute suicide bombings. He said he had been involved in 8 such bombings, but wasn't a murderer and would never kill anyone. It was the suicide bombers killing people. Therefore he shouldn't be punished too harshly. Seriously.