John Carlin spoke to The Cipher Brief for an article covering the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) warning reminding businesses that if they pay ransom to cyber hackers, they could be violating OFAC regulations and exposing themselves to government fines.
“The bigger picture is that the problem of ransomware is not going to be solved by sanctions alone,” John said. “We need to think through our policy on ransomware so that these attackers don’t end up going after the same victims twice.”
“The U.S. government works with like-minded partners throughout the world, because this isn’t just a U.S. issue – we all want to deter and disrupt the bad guys,” he added. “If you’re going to forbid payments, you have to work on providing help on the front end with resilience for the companies, especially small and medium-sized companies.”
Read the full article.