A Russia-Based Growth Industry

$6.3 million here, $4.9 million there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money —  $5.2 billion in this case, which is the amount of bitcoin that the top 10 hacking groups have trafficked in the past three years. The ransomware business is booming in 2021, and in case you doubt it check the report recently released by the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Suspicious ransomware-related transactions totaled around $590 million from January 2021 to June 2021, and the hackers probably have more crypto laying around that they haven’t cashed in yet. There was $200 million more paid out in the first half of 2021 than in the entirety of 2020, according to FinCEN. If the trend continues, hackers could make more from ransomware this year than they did in the past decade.