Ransomware is a national security threat and a big business — and it’s wreaking havoc; The Washington Post, May 15, 2021

 

Ellen Nakashima and Rachel Lerman, The Washington Post; Ransomware is a national security threat and a big business — and it’s wreaking havoc

 

"But many of the actors are in countries outside the reach of U.S. and allied authorities. DarkSide, for example, is believed to be based in Russia and many of its communications are in Russian. 

 

“They’ve become the 21st century equivalent of countries that sheltered pirates,” said Daniel, the Obama White House cyber coordinator. “We have to impose diplomatic and economic consequences so they don’t see it as in their interest to harbor those criminals.”"

No One Should Give In to Cyber Extortion Unless It's a Life or Death Situation; Slate, March 7, 2017

Josephine Wolff, Slate; 

No One Should Give In to Cyber Extortion Unless It's a Life or Death Situation

"Paying ransoms and caving to extortion demands just encourages more of the same activity, directed at both previous victims and new ones. The only way to effectively discourage this kind of crime is to make it so fruitless, so unprofitable, so profoundly ineffective that the perpetrators find a new outlet for their energies. And the only way to do that is to stop relying on individual victims and organizations to make these choices themselves and implement policies that explicitly penalize the payment of online ransoms in most circumstances."