Some companies will pay hackers up to US$1 million in ransoms to claw back stolen data

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/14/cloud_security_alliance_says_infosec_wonks_would_pay_1m_ransoms/

The report found a quarter of respondents would pay ransoms to prevent the release of sensitive corporate data. Some victims however have no option to pay; net scum are distributing a flawed ransomware instance based on the Hidden Tear open source code ostensibly uploaded to GitHub for research purposes.

It is easy to critisize companies which are ready to pay ransom, but some data is much more valuable than $1M.

Some victims however have no option to pay; net scum are distributing a flawed ransomware instance based on the Hidden Tear open source code ostensibly uploaded to GitHub for research purposes.

That code was deliberately sabotaged, the author says, to encrypt both the victim's data and encryption key leaving attackers without the means to decrypt data after ransom payment.