The famous Russian-language hacker forum has banned the mention of ransomware

XSS is a well-known forum where users discuss all kinds of vulnerabilities, exploits, malware, and ways to penetrate other people’s networks. Ransomware was also actively discussed there, moreover, among the forum participants there are representatives of Ransomware groups who actively recruited new partners to work on the “Ransomware-as-a-Service” (RaaS) model.

The decision to ban the discussion of Ransomware was made personally by the forum administrator.

The administrator stated that Ransomware is usually not interesting from a technical point of view, while the main purpose of the forum is “knowledge”.

“We are a technical forum, we learn, research, share knowledge, write interesting articles. The goal of Ransomware is only to earn money. The goals are not the same,” the forum administrator wrote.

He noted that there is a degradation: newcomers see “crazy virtual millions” that are paid from time to time as a ransom for unlocking data, and think that they will be able to get them. Therefore, beginners “do not want anything, do not learn anything, do not code anything, even just do not think, their whole life is reduced to “encrypt – get $”.

The administrator of XSS Forum also said that there is too much PR around the topic, as well as “nonsense, hype, noise” and even politics. The topic of Politics is obviously related to the Ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline, which led to a large-scale crisis in the United States.

“The word “ransom” was equated with a number of unpleasant phenomena — geopolitics, extortion, state hacking. This word has become dangerous and toxic,” the forum administrator said.

So he decided to ban everything related to Ransomware. Even old forum threads related to this topic will be deleted.

According to Alexey Vodiasov, technical director of SEC Consult Services said that Ransomware is really a way to make quick money with very little effort. It is possible that after the attack on the Colonial Pipeline, US law enforcement agencies may launch an intensive campaign against the cyber underground.