Hostage to hackers: can the war against ransomware be won?

Ransomware is big business. Companies affected by hackers, who lock up victims' data and demand a payment to unlock it, paid out some £650 million to cybercriminals last year.

- Chris Stokel-Walker

Hackers continue to launch attacks indiscriminately—affecting companies from Coop to Marks & Spencer, which are only just scrambling back to normality after suffering extraordinarily debilitating attacks earlier in the year.

The Government has decided that allowing organisations to continue to pay up is only encouraging criminals to launch more attacks — so has announced plans to ban public sector organisations from paying ransoms.

Private companies would also be compelled to tell the Government if they intend to pay a ransom, allowing Whitehall to veto such payments if they believe the proceeds would end up in countries the UK has sanctioned, including Russia. Around three-quarters of ransomware attacks are thought to originate in Russia, according to analysis by the US Treasury. It’s not yet clear when the ban would come into force.