Any publicity is good publicity in my opinion :)
Remember when the "wannacry" ransomware was rampaging about and all of the news channels were talking about Bitcoin- My theory is that they didn't do it for the ransom money alone (which was only around $100,000 or so in total), they did it to bring publicity to Bitcoin and have everyone asking what it is...
The price of Bitcoin went on a serious rally in the months following all of those ransomware attacks COINCIDENTALLY :) They had way more to gain by drawing attention to Bitcoin, rather than from the ransoms themselves.