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> Another solution that has no harms and only benefit is to require the reporting of every ransom payment. That would give the government the crypto transaction

> Another solution that has no harms and only benefit is to require the reporting of every ransom payment. That would give the government the crypto transaction information to conduct taint and attribution analysis. It is currently illegal to knowingly use funds received from kidnapping or ransoms, and this reporting requirement would help the government enforce that. Definitely a must have for now and on a international scale IMHO. But a effective ban on ransom payments would still be the most effective measurement. The problem is how do you effectively ban it? For many countries such thing could never be enforced, so it wouldn't remove the sensitive for non-specific target ransomware attacks IMHO and as such won't work.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
> The problem is how do you effectively ban it? If a corporation pays, and ledger history can provide definitive proof, the corporation faces the same penalties as if they violated international sanctions. Corporations will need to onramp fiat to crypto somewhere, and FinCEN [1] will know based on SARs (Suspicious Activity Report)/CTRs (Currency Transaction Reports), or SWIFT if international monies transfers [2]. [1] https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations [2] https://www.swift.com/our-solutions/compliance-and-shared-services/financial-crime-compliance/compliance-analytics-solutions/correspondent-monitoring https://www.swift.com/our-solutions/compliance-and-shared-se...
bernawil 5y ago
> For many countries such thing could never be enforced so it follows that if a country bans ransoms payments criminals will just ingnore that country and focus on the next easiest target, putting pressure on every country to follow the example and ban it too. I think this will be very effective at stopping the most sofisticated targeted attacks but won't have much effect on indiscriminate "viral" attacks because those attack indiscriminately and wrecking targets from banned countries at least would serve as detterrant for victims in countries that can.

toomuchtodo 5y ago

> The problem is how do you effectively ban it? If a corporation pays, and ledger history can provide definitive proof, the corporation faces the same penalties as if they violated international sanctions. Corporations will need to onramp fiat to crypto somewhere, and FinCEN [1] will know based on SARs (Suspicious Activity Report)/CTRs (Currency Transaction Reports), or SWIFT if international monies transfers [2]. [1] https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations [2] https://www.swift.com/our-solutions/compliance-and-shared-services/financial-crime-compliance/compliance-analytics-solutions/correspondent-monitoring https://www.swift.com/our-solutions/compliance-and-shared-se...

bernawil 5y ago

> For many countries such thing could never be enforced so it follows that if a country bans ransoms payments criminals will just ingnore that country and focus on the next easiest target, putting pressure on every country to follow the example and ban it too. I think this will be very effective at stopping the most sofisticated targeted attacks but won't have much effect on indiscriminate "viral" attacks because those attack indiscriminately and wrecking targets from banned countries at least would serve as detterrant for victims in countries that can.