Google ransomware tracking finds vicious infection cycle

Ransomware surged last year, becoming a multi-million dollar business that’s so profitable it’s creating a “vicious cycle” of ever-increasing attacks, say researchers at New York University [Tandon School of Engineering] and Google who tracked the criminals’ payment networks. … The findings suggest that even though the last two large ransomware attacks, Wannacry, and Petya, did not seem to raise that much money, the criminal cyber industry in general has much to gain by exploiting users with these attacks.