That was the state of play in 2015 as well. In the absence of a claim from the group otherwise, I wouldn't be surprised if they simply couldn't get it to stop (on a technical level.)

Way back when, it was a pretty common screwup to accidentally saturate the nodes you were packeting from. So then your C&C couldn't get them to respond, either. Oops.

>Most hackers actually keep their promises if paid the ransom, nowadays.

I don't think that's actually true, or at least is certainly cannot be taken for granted. Instead, it appears ransom has followed more of the path of Silicon Valley VCs:

.It sounds perverse but the incentives require it: if payment didn't bring resolution, no one would pay. As a result, all of the big gangs avoid scamming.

What you're describing is the expected Game Theory outcome over long periods in an iterated game. This works as long as the payment amount is towards the <salary> side of the potential payment spectrum, where each payment may well be decent money for the work the ransomers put in but not so much that they don't need new ransoms. The problem comes if/when the absolute amount of payment moves from "salary" to the "Exit"/"Retirement" side of the spectrum, ie, heads into what VC would call "Unicorn" status. At some level of money it reaches the point where the ransomers need never work again in their lives, it's enough money to get out of the risky business and live off of it indefinitely. It's now no longer an iterated game but a single game, and in single games defection can be rewarded. It no longer matters if reputation is burned, on the contrary it might be the moment to cash all accumulated rep in.

I think in general, both on the bright and dark sides, this sort of "phase change" in a given market space is worth trying to keep an eye out for because it can result in significantly changed behavior "out of nowhere" that can head in ugly directions very fast.

Yeah, this business is based on actually delivering the promise.

The point is that by paying you incentivize it and make it worthwhile not that the hackers keep promises.

That makes sense. They should pay, then.

Seems like there is an achilles heel for this business model: A "good guy" could start hacking companies, demand ransom while pretending to be one of the gangs, and then deliberately continuing the attack after the ransom is paid. Precisely to destroy this business model. The gangs would be fuming but there would be nothing they could do? Apart from trying to track down the "good guy" or introducing some sort of (cryptography based or whatever) proof-system that a hack was made by them?