The wild thing is that the ransomware operations are making so much money that they can afford to buy multi-million dollar zero day vulns that at one point were only available to nation states or fortune 500 companies. Every successful round of extortion just gives them more ammunition to purchase more of them, hire more engineers, etc.
This kind of illicit capital flow totally makes a mockery of AML regulations. All the rules that were created after 9/11 are out the window - this time it's money to pay for zero days, but it's not a huge leap for this kind of illicit capital flow to end up paying for a huge terror op, paramilitary coup, etc. We'll be reading the next blue ribbon commission's retrospective findings for some horrific event in a few years and it'll be obvious what we failed at.
This kind of illicit capital flow totally makes a mockery of AML regulations. All the rules that were created after 9/11 are out the window - this time it's money to pay for zero days, but it's not a huge leap for this kind of illicit capital flow to end up paying for a huge terror op, paramilitary coup, etc. We'll be reading the next blue ribbon commission's retrospective findings for some horrific event in a few years and it'll be obvious what we failed at.