Fraud management & cybercrime, Geo Focus: Great Britain, geo-specific
Cybersecurity -Wonks fold errors in ransomware suggestions for home offices
Akhabokan Akan (Athokan_akhsha) •
April 4, 2025
A collection of British Cybersecurity Policy Wonks has inserted cold water through a proposal from the British government in order to ban ransom payments by government agencies and regulated operators of critical infrastructure.
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The home office in January opened a consultation that closes on Tuesday and weighs the legislation that require the mandatory reporting of all payments to ransomware groups and their limited ban.
However, a ban would probably not be a significant blow to ransomware profits, said 38 participants of a workshop in February, which was convened by the Royal United Services Institute, a London Think Tank. The participants included CISOS from critical infrastructure sectors, executives from Incident Response as well as cyber security sellers and insurers.
A ban would probably also not stop ransomware hackers from banning British goals, which led consensus, since ransomware attacks are largely opportunistic, is a report based on the workshop.
The state proposal would also have to require British organizations whether they should pay off their attackers in order to deal with the state authority that would determine whether such payment would be legal.
“For example, whether a payment could pass to North Korean companies. As soon as the approval has been granted, the victim organization could bring its authorization certificate to its chosen Ransomware payment mediator and continue with the payment,” the report said. Government officers who were available during the workshop suggested that the authority would return to applicants within 72 hours. Some participants stated that the turnaround would be “too slow” for the quick pace of the incident reaction. Some others expressed concerns whether the government could carry out a precise evaluation of the incidents within a short time.
“A victim who goes through a cyber attack has the most stressful time and you also have to make really well -founded quick decisions. And the idea that you may not hear from the government in 72 hours could possibly cause problems with the rest of the rest of 24 to 48 to 72 hours.
A probable result is that the reporting mechanism could create more obstacles to victims, said Johnstone-Hulse.
Other stakeholders said that the consultation paper has no clarity as to whether they could make an appeal against a negative decision. The participants also asked the government to think about how they carry out non -compliance with non -compliance and how to address gaps, e.g. B. the payment of ransomware hackers who were organized outside the United Kingdom.
“It is also the question that it is fair,” said Jamie Maccoll, a high -ranking research fellow in Cyberhreats and cyber security at Rusi. “To make it fair, especially for organizations of the public sector that are part of the critical national infrastructure, additional funds and technical incidents for reaction support for victims who no longer have to recover and pay for resources must give.”