How is it even legal to pay ransoms? Surely this is transferring money to criminal enterprises. If it is not illegal it needs to be made illegal.
Royal Mail dismisses ‘absurd’ $80M ransom demand
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Re: Royal Mail dismisses ‘absurd’ $80M ransom demand
#12lol this is Royal Mail, not Google. It's not like it has $80 million sitting around. Maybe they should have been more flexible. That's usually how you negotiate: start with a lot and work to something smaller that the counterparty will agree on. Done-in by greed and got $0, which they deserve. Shows how even the rules of negotiation applies to dark markets.
Royal Mail was privatised because 1st world state postal systems have to subsidise the postal systems of 3rd world countries.
Its an international agreement which has come back to bite the UK because China is still classed as a 3rd world country.
Lets just say the globalist's who set the rule's are finding their rules are now not so good.
Re: Royal Mail dismisses ‘absurd’ $80M ransom demand
#13How is it even legal to pay ransoms? Surely this is transferring money to criminal enterprises. If it is not illegal it needs to be made illegal.
Why would it not be legal? If I was a hacker, the existence of a law prohibiting businesses from paying cyber ransoms would not deter me. If a company wanted to follow the law and refused to pay the ransom the hackers asked of them, the hackers could follow through and delete or irreparably corrupt their files. The potential upside, that they pay the ransom, is significant, while the downside, that they don't, doesn't mean much. They'll just keep probing for targets. What are they gonna do? Arrest them? In all likelihood, they're hiding behind multiple VPNs, working from a virtual machine, from a country without an extradition treaty.
Re: Royal Mail dismisses ‘absurd’ $80M ransom demand
#14If Russia were to physically disrupt a country's social services by force, it would be an act of war. Here they have disrupted a British social service without force by state sponsored hacker terrorists, rendering harm in the physical world. The line gets blurrier.
Re: Royal Mail dismisses ‘absurd’ $80M ransom demand
#15How is it even legal to pay ransoms? Surely this is transferring money to criminal enterprises. If it is not illegal it needs to be made illegal.
Why would it not be legal? If I was a hacker, the existence of a law prohibiting businesses from paying cyber ransoms would not deter me. If a company wanted to follow the law and refused to pay the ransom the hackers asked of them, the hackers could follow through and delete or irreparably corrupt their files. The potential upside, that they pay the ransom, is significant, while the downside, that they don't, doesn'…
The argument seems implausible as it assumes that hackers would persist in deleting data, whereas in reality, they would probably shift their focus to other targets such as private companies that lack similar prohibitions. It is unclear what incentive they would have to continue hacking public companies if they cannot profit from that?
Re: Royal Mail dismisses ‘absurd’ $80M ransom demand
#16I live in a small suburb north of Houston, and they were hit with a ransomware attack in late December. They still aren't fully operational.
https://techmonitor.ai/technology/cybersecurity/ransomware-r...
Council was hit with ransomware, they went back to pen and paper for everything. They lost track of who lives there and when moved out. They kept resending overdue bills to addresses threatening debt collects to people who moved out. The council said they will still collect council tax once they are operational and it's your responsibility to have money ready for such situation. Even now there are comments on /r/UKPersonalFinance people complaining on getting incorrect bills.
Good luck!
Re: Royal Mail dismisses ‘absurd’ $80M ransom demand
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would it not be legal? If I was a hacker, the existence of a law prohibiting businesses from paying cyber ransoms would not deter me. If a company wanted to follow the law and refused to pay the ransom the hackers asked of them, the hackers could follow through and delete or irreparably corrupt their files. The potential upside, that they pay the ransom, is significant, while the downside, that they don't, doesn'…
The argument seems implausible as it assumes that hackers would persist in deleting data, whereas in reality, they would probably shift their focus to other targets such as private companies that lack similar prohibitions. It is unclear what incentive they would have to continue hacking public companies if they cannot profit from that?
> It is unclear what incentive they would have to continue hacking public companies if they cannot profit from that.
The intent would be to put pressure on national legislatures to repeal laws that make paying ransoms illegal. Smart ransomware groups don't care about targets that can't afford to pay. So any "inability" to pay is either the result of stubbornness or a law, both of which can change if enough pressure is applied. Of course, the solution is for businesses to harden their systems enough to resist these sorts of intrusion in the first place.
Re: Royal Mail dismisses ‘absurd’ $80M ransom demand
#18lol this is Royal Mail, not Google. It's not like it has $80 million sitting around. Maybe they should have been more flexible. That's usually how you negotiate: start with a lot and work to something smaller that the counterparty will agree on. Done-in by greed and got $0, which they deserve. Shows how even the rules of negotiation applies to dark markets.
Royal Mail was privatised because 1st world state postal systems have to subsidise the postal systems of 3rd world countries. Its an international agreement which has come back to bite the UK because China is still classed as a 3rd world country. Lets just say the globalist's who set the rule's are finding their rules are now not so good.
The US has a similar agreement with China.
"The new 1969 agreement included terminal dues, the receiving postal agencies would charge the country of origin for delivering the post on by-weight basis.
To be blunt, shipping from China to USA (and most of the rest of the world) is much cheaper than shipping domestically in USA because the terminal-dues are much too low and account only for the total weight of the post, not for the number of items.
For example, in 2013 China paid $1/kg (or $0.50/lbs)[1] to have post delivered in USA. This is MUCH lower than domestic pricing, especially if it’s light-weight objects.
As an example, I just ordered a new wristband for a watch I own from China. I just weighed it, and it weighs 78 grams. That means China would pay less than 8 cents to have this wristband delivered anywhere in USA.
By comparison, sending the same weight in a domestic letter in USA[2] would cost 92 cents, or a factor of 11.5 more.
Reality is that this agreement now acts as a massive subsidy to especially China who produces a lot of low-cost low-weight products and can now deliver them to customers worldwide for a price much lower than local companies can.
This situation will persist until the relevant agreements are renegotiated. I’m frankly surprised that hasn’t happened already.
[1] https://archive.is/20121212225536/http://www.upu.int/en/acti...
[2] https://www.stamps.com/usps/postage-rate-increase/
https://www.quora.com/How-is-China-able-to-offer-free-worldw...
Re: Royal Mail dismisses ‘absurd’ $80M ransom demand
#19How is it even legal to pay ransoms? Surely this is transferring money to criminal enterprises. If it is not illegal it needs to be made illegal.
it is.
depends on jurisdiction, but if the ransoming organization is a sanctioned entity, it may be considered an illegal sanctions violation.
for instance, the US OFAC has issued this statement warning companies to not pay ransoms: https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/ofac_ransomware_a...
royal mail is in the UK, but the UK has its own sanctions regime with similar penalties.
edit: the UK OFSI has issued a similar warning this month
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
Re: Royal Mail dismisses ‘absurd’ $80M ransom demand
#20I bought some candy from Amazon that was shipped by Royal Mail, and it never arrived. Amazon told me to take up the refund with Royal Mail, with no instructions how to do so. Anyone know how I can get a refund from Amazon/Royal Mail for the candy they never sent?