Estimations that $400 million worth of payments went to groups "highly affiliated with Russia." Also noted is that this report only looks at the flow of money, sent many Ransomware operations rent out tools to affiliates.
Russia however denies the allegations, with Puting stating that "Russia is not listed in this ranking of countries that see the most significant number of cyber-attacks from their territory," and that they do not harbor cybercriminals.
BBC said:Chainalysis, which carried out the research, said it was able to follow the flow of money to and from the digital wallets of known hacking groups using public blockchain transaction records.
Analysts say they know which hacking groups are Russian because they display various characteristics, for example:
The research is further evidence that many cyber-criminal groups operate either in Russia or in the surrounding Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) - an intergovernmental organization of Russian-speaking, former Soviet countries.
- Their ransomware code is written to prevent it from damaging files if it detects the victim's computers are located in Russia or a CIS country
- The gang operates in Russian on Russian-speaking forums
- The gang is linked to Evil Corp - an alleged cyber-crime group wanted by the US
However, the report only looks at the flow of money to cyber-criminal gang leaders, and many run affiliate operations - essentially renting out the tools needed to launch attacks to others - so it's not known where the individual hackers who work for the big gangs are from.
Russia however denies the allegations, with Puting stating that "Russia is not listed in this ranking of countries that see the most significant number of cyber-attacks from their territory," and that they do not harbor cybercriminals.
74% of ransomware revenue goes to Russia-linked hackers
Crypto-currency researchers say more than $400m of cyber-crime funds go to Russian gangs.
www.bbc.com