Elaine Ou, Columnist

Cyber Extortion Is No Way to Get Rich

Bitcoin and globalization have radically changed the economics of the crime.

August 25, 2016 at 3:00 AM EDT

Elaine Ou is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She is a blockchain engineer at Global Financial Access in San Francisco. Previously she was a lecturer in the electrical and information engineering department at the University of Sydney.

Don't quit your day job.
Photographer: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

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Once upon a time, a regular hacker could make decent money in the world of ransomware, malicious software that locks up parts of a victim’s computer and demands payment to restore access.

Now those days are gone. I blame globalization.

Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal

LEARN MORE