[giaour]

Collecting a ransom in physical cash is extremely risky for criminals! Law enforcement knows where you are at a specific time.

I have never heard of ransomware that predated cryptocurrency; could you share a link to an article?

[d4mi3n]

It's a fascinating topic! Wikipedia has a pretty detailed entry on the topic and reports the earliest known ransomware attack to be as early as 1989[1][2]!

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransomware#History

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_(Trojan_horse)

[giaour]

Interesting! I am a bit struck by how low the early ransoms seemed to be (looks like they were around $200 or less) even when they gained access to anonymous remote payment methods in ~2005 (e.g. eGold and Liberty Reserve).

It’s also interesting that all of those early anonymous remote payment methods have been significantly altered specifically to nerf their utility for extortion and scamming.