[sbisker]

Still doesn't prove causality of course, but there's an article on the front page at this very moment about a spike in ransomware. And most ransomware (and ransom in general) is paid quietly, not discussed publicly. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14324129

[nullstyle]

Yes, I'm well aware. And if you look at the dashboard for the botnet (https://intel.malwaretech.com/botnet/wcrypt/?t=24h&bid=all) it looks like we're dealing with ~80000 infected hosts.

Unless I'm reading things wrongs (and that certainly could be) it seems like the ransom from those hosts would still be several orders of magnitude lower than the new money that appears to be coming into the exchanges.