The Case for a Ransom Payment Ban and When It Might Happen

Banning ransom payments remains a part of every government's potential anti-cybercrime toolkit - if they care to use it.

Expect to see at least a partial ransom payment ban come into effect in Britain, said cybersecurity policy expert Jen Ellis, who co-chairs the Institute for Security and Technology's public-private Ransomware Task Force.

Banning ransoms isn't a silver bullet, could have a negligible impact on attack volume, and involves "mandating the behavior of victims, rather than mandating the behavior of the attackers," which is "not great," she said. But then, so are the ethics of directly funding cybercrime.

Timing-wise, she expects to see the British government first advance two other initiatives. The first is the revamped Cyber Action Plan for the government, unveiled earlier this month. The plan dropped one day before second reading of the government's Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, which will ...