It may seem odd to some, but it isn’t illegal to pay a ransomware demand, even though the forced encryption of someone else’s data and demand for
payment is itself a federal crime under at least the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, as well as many laws
passed by State legislatures.
One might argue that the best way to solve the ransomware epidemic would be to make it illegal for organizations to pay. Criminals are naturally only interested in the pay off, and if that route to the payday was simply prescribed by law, it would very quickly lead both to companies exploring other options to deal with ransomware and, at least in theory, criminals moving toward some other endeavour with an easier payout.
The idea of outlawing the payment of ransomware demands might seem appealing at first, until you unpack the idea to think how it would work in practice. Publicly traded companies have a legal duty to shareholders; public service companies have legally binding commitments to serve their communities.
A law that threatened to fine organizations, or perhaps imprison staff, would be hugely controversial in principle and likely difficult to enforce in practice, quite aside from the ethics of criminalizing the victim of a crime whose sole intent is to coerce that victim into making a payment.
Imagine a prosecutor attempting to convince a court that an employee – whose actions, say, restored a critical public service and saved the taxpayer millions of dollars after authorizing a five figure ransomware payment – should be jailed.
How would that, in principle, be different from prosecuting a parent for securing the safety of a child by paying off kidnappers? It doesn’t look like an easy case to win, particularly when the employee (or organization) might cite legitimate extenuating circumstances such as preserving life or other legal obligations.
Is it Ethical to Pay a Ransomware Demand?
On this pragmatic conception of ethics, one might argue that paying a ransomware demand that restores some vital service or unlocks some irreplaceable data outweighs the ‘harm’ of rewarding and encouraging those engaged in criminal behavior.
If it’s not illegal to pay a ransomware demand, that still leaves open the separate question as to whether it’s ethical. There’s a couple of different angles that can be taken on this one. According to some interpretations of ethics, something is a “good” or “right” decision if it leads to an overall benefit for the community.
On the other hand, it could be argued that what is right, or ethical, is distinct from what is a pragmatic or merely expedient solution. Indulging in a fantastical thought-experiment for a moment, would we consider it ethical if a ransomware author demanded the life of a person, instead of money, to release data that would save the lives of thousands of others? Many would have a strong intuition that it would always be unethical to murder one innocent to protect the lives of others. And that suggests that what is “right” and “wrong” might not revolve around a simple calculation of perceived benefits.
The real problem with the pragmatic approach, however, is that there’s no agreement on how to objectively calculate the outcome of different ethical choices. More often than not, the weight we give to different ethical choices merely reflect our bias for the choice that we are naturally predisposed to.
If pragmatism can’t help inform us of whether it’s ethical or not to pay ransomware, we could look to a different view of ethics that suggest we should consider actions as “right” or “wrong” insofar as they reflect the values of the kind of society we want to live in.
This view is sometimes expressed more simply as a version of the “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” maxim.
A more accurate way to parse it might be to ask: Do we want to live in a society where we think it’s right (ethical) to pay those who engage in criminal behavior?
Is this a maxim that we would want to teach our children? Put in those terms, many would perhaps say not.
Even if we might have a clear idea of the legal ituation and a particular take on our own ethical stance, the question of whether to pay or not to pay raises other issues. We are not entirely done with the pragmatics of the ransomware dilemma. We may still feel inclined to make an unethical choice in light of other, seemingly more pressing concerns. There is a real, tangible pressure on making a choice that could save your organization or your city millions of dollars, or which might spare weeks of downtime of a critical service.
A case in point: recently, three Alabama hospitals paid a ransom in order to resume operations. The hospitals’ spokesperson said:
“We worked with law enforcement and IT security experts to assess all options in executing the solution we felt was in the best interests of our patients and in alignment with our health system’s mission. This included purchasing a decryption key from the attackers to expedite system recovery and help ensure patient safety.”
This “hard reality” perspective is reflected in recent changes made to the FBI’s official guidance on ransomware threats.
However, the possibility that the criminals will not hold up their side of the bargain must be factored into any decision about paying a ransomware demand. In some cases, decryption keys are not even available, and in others, the ransomware authors simply didn’t respond once they were paid. We saw this to some degree with WannaCry. In the flurry of the WannaCry outbreak, some victims paid and got keys, yet a large amount either never heard from the authors, or the key pairs between victim and server were unmatched, making per-user decryption impossible
.
A further point to consider when weighing up the prudence of acquiescing to the demand for payment is how this will affect your organization beyond the present attack itself. Will paying harm your reputation or earn you plaudits? Will other – or even the same – attackers now see you as a soft target and look to strike you again? Will your financial support for the criminals’ enterprise lead to further attacks against other companies, or services, that you yourself rely on?
In other words, will giving in to the ransomware demand produce worse long-
term effects than the immediate ones it seems – if the attackers deliver on their promise – to solve?
“...the FBI understands that when businesses are faced with an inability to function, executives will evaluate all options to protect their shareholders, employees, and customers.”
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