Trend comes up with two explanations for the form's growing popularity among criminals, the biggest of which is the recent disruption of the industry behind fake antivirus scams. This has sent developers to new types of attack that can make use of payment channels less dependant on credit cards, which create an evidence trail.

"Ukash and Paysafecard are widely used online payment methods that do not require personal details. Such level of anonymity has naturally earned the attention of cybercriminals and, as we can see, is now being abused for the ransomware business," said Trend threat engineer, Roland Dela Paz.