Hackers already received a $22 million payment. Now a second group demands money. //

Callow says the incident reinforces that cybercriminals can’t be trusted to delete data, even when they are paid. //

“Sometimes they use the undeleted data to extort victims for a second time, and the risk of re-extortion will only increase as law enforcement up their disruption efforts and throw the ransomware ecosystem into chaos,” Callow says. “What were always unpredictable outcomes will now be even more unpredictable.”

Similarly, DiMaggio says victims of ransomware attacks need to learn they can’t trust cybercriminals. “Victims need to understand that paying a criminal who promises to delete their data permanently is a myth,” DiMaggio says. “They are paying to have their data taken off the public side of the ransomware attackers' data leak site. They should assume it is never actually deleted.” //

quackmeister Smack-Fu Master, in training
7y
55
Makes perfect business sense that ransomware vendors are embracing the subscriber model. //

deviant_cocktail Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
4y
150
Subscriptor
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:—

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"

(From the poem Dane-geld by Rudyard Kipling) //

Shavano Ars Legatus Legionis
11y
57,985
Subscriptor
Although Change Healthcare and their parent United Health rightly deserve to be pilloried and their stock to take a giant nose dive for this, and to lose all their doctor affiliations and patients, punishing them alone won't fix the problem. Everybody's data remains at risk as long as it's legal to pay ransomware companies.

Make it a felony for any US business or government entity to pay cyber-related ransom. Then the payments will stop, which will make the ransom attempts stop. //

freaq Ars Scholae Palatinae
6y
1,099
Stop… paying…
They will never stop if you keep paying…

its time that it becomes illegal to pay off ransomware, so that fewer people do.

Crime only stops when it stops paying…