Blog

Making Ransomware Payments Can Get You In Legal Trouble

Dec 21, 2018 | Blog

It’s no secret that ransomware attacks have been on the rise over the last couple of years. Many companies, desperate to get their files back, have resorted to simply paying the ransom and hoping the hackers act in good faith and keep their word where unlocking the files is concerned. That approach just got a lot more complicated, thanks to the OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control), which is a part of the Department of the Treasury.

In a recently unsealed grand jury indictment against a pair of Iranian hackers, we’ve learned that in addition to identifying the hackers by name, they’ve also been identified by their specific cryptocurrency wallet address.

Here’s why that matters:

The OFAC has added both hackers to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List. That means that US citizens and businesses are forbidden to do business with or conduct transactions of any kind with them, including sending ransom payments to their cryptocurrency addresses.

Since federal investigators are monitoring those wallets now, any ransom payments sent to them could easily be traced back to the person sending the funds. At that time, the sender would be subject to secondary sanctions and fines that would be far more than whatever the original ransom amount might have been.

Needless to say, this complicates things a great deal for companies hit by ransomware attacks and it makes it all the more important to have a strategy in place to recover your files if you are successfully attacked in this manner.

Failure to do so could be ruinously expensive.  In addition to suffering system downtime (which will cause your company to bleed red ink), and the funds lost paying the ransom, now you’ve got to worry about the federal government.  Not good.

FBI Program Tasked with Infrastructure Security Compromised

FBI Program Tasked with Infrastructure Security Compromised

The FBI program tasked with ensuring critical infrastructure security has been compromised by hackers, who now offer access to the program's data on the dark web. The breach was initially disclosed by Brian Krebs of Krebs on Security, who claims that the data was for...

Streamline Your Business with the Latest Smart Home Technology

Streamline Your Business with the Latest Smart Home Technology

Are you a business owner looking to get the most out of your Google smart home devices? If so, you're in luck! Google has enabled its Nest products and Android OS with the initial rollout of the Matter smart home standard. This means that businesses now have the...

Data Breach at Sequoia One Exposes Sensitive Customer Information

Data Breach at Sequoia One Exposes Sensitive Customer Information

What do you do when your most personal information has been compromised? This is likely the question that customers of Sequoia One asked themselves earlier this month as they were informed that the company had been hacked. Sequoia One specializes in the management of...

Cisco Reports Critical IP Phone Vulnerability

Cisco Reports Critical IP Phone Vulnerability

As a business owner, it's important to stay informed about potential vulnerabilities that could impact your organization. Recently, Cisco reported a critical vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-20968, affecting its IP Phone 7800 and 8800 Series. This new vulnerability...

Google Chrome Releases Two New Features

Google Chrome Releases Two New Features

Google Chrome is one of the more commonly used web browsers. Over the years, though, Chrome has gained a reputation for utilizing a large portion of a computer's memory. This can be a problem if you're running other resource-intensive tasks and don't want to slow...

Get a Free Consultation

 

Fill out the form below to receive a free consultation and learn how we can make your technology worry-free!

 

Contact Information

  • 39301 Badger Street, Suite 500
    Palm Desert, CA 9221
  • (760) 333-8523
  • info@icn.tech