New proposal requires ransomware victims to report payments within 48 hours

By Steve Zurier for SC Media
Thursday, October 7, 2021

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Deborah Ross, D-N.C., have introduced legislation that would require ransomware victims to report information about ransom payments no later than 48 hours after the date of payment.

Ransomware has become a transnational threat capable of taking away human lives by paralyzing hospitals and disrupting critical national infrastructure, said Ilia Kolochenko, founder of ImmuniWeb. The proposed law will certainly provide the DHS with better visibility on international ransomware actors, but unless the DHS gets a tenfold cybercrime budget increase, Kolochenko said it will likely drown in an avalanche of submissions.

“Mere information gathering about ransom payments will unlikely bring the desired results, as transactions on cryptocurrencies are often untraceable and uninvestigable,” Kolochenko said. “Thus, it would also be worthwhile to consider expanding the law to provide additional authority to existing law enforcement agencies, increase their cybersecurity budgets, provide free training and 24x7 support to the victims, and expand international cooperation in the investigation and prosecution of cybercrime. Countless cybercrime cases are never cleared because of slow or otherwise ineffective collaboration across different countries.” Read Full Article