A security expert claimed that cybercriminals using the ransomware tactic have amassed a collective bounty of about $1 billion last year. This figure is based on the amount of money that went into Bitcoin wallets, believed to be controlled by ransomware operators.

Of the $1 billion collective bounty, more than $50 million each were funneled towards three Bitcoin wallets associated with the notorious ransomware Locky. A fourth Bitcoin wallet believed to be connected with the Locky ransomware received close to $70 million.

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Bitcoin wallets associated with Cryptowall were also reported to have received close to $100 million before the operation was eventually shut down early this year. Bitcoind wallets associated with CryptXXX funneled around $73 million during the second half of 2016, while the Cerber ransomware received $54 million.

Smaller ransomware operations have collectively amassed $150 million. The Federal Bureau of Investigations reported that $209 million associated with ransomware payments were reported within the first three months of 2016.

Moreover, authorities only associated the $1 billion figure with known ransomware payments. Authorities are estimating that several millions of dollars were funneled to ransomware operator Bitcoin wallets that are not reported.

According to ZDNet, ransomware operators have targeted not only private entities but also general services like train stations and hospitals.

In a statement acquired by CSO Online, Trend Micro vice president of cloud research Mark Nunnikhoven said, "It's getting difficult to track the amount of money flowing into criminals' Bitcoin wallets because they've started to try and hide the transactions across a large number of wallets."

Nunnikhoven added that they have seen a meteoric rise in terms of ransomware variants over the course of 2016. He expects the ransomware variants will grow by about 25 percent this year.

Tagsransomware, hacker, hackers, hack, ransomware bounty, ransomware price, bounty, hack bounty