in November but at the time it wasn’t certain just how many machines had actually opened the malicious attachment and were legitimately infected. It was reported the malware was sent to “tens of millions” of online banking customers in the U.K. While all of the research is an interesting read, it’s especially noteworthy that the analysis has finally given us an idea how many computers have been infected since the malware surfaced shortly after the beginning of September. In a blog posted Wednesday, Keith Jarvis, a Senior Security Researcher with Dell SecureWorks, discussed the history of CryptoLocker and described how the malware is able to encrypt its victims’ files until they pay a ransom, usually around $300. The unknown group of attackers have already infected between 200,000 and 250,000 systems worldwide and likely raked far greater than $30o,ooo in ransom to date, according to researchers at Dell SecureWorks CTU, who published a deep analysis on the malware this week.

By that yardstick, the crew behind the CryptoLocker ransomware have been a raging success. New American presidents often are measured by what they accomplish in their first 100 days.

UPDATE: The math in this and other reports was simply tabulated incorrectly.

Crypto locker price