It just comes down to the cost-benefit for the bad guys. As long as it is profitable it won't stop. Yes, many big businesses may stop paying since the executiv

It just comes down to the cost-benefit for the bad guys. As long as it is profitable it won't stop. Yes, many big businesses may stop paying since the executives don't want to go to jail. Realistically if they are that big they can probably come up with a legal argument to justify the payment though within the mess of exceptions that would have to exist if this became a thing. In the end the bad guys are just going to adjust to target smaller companies that would be under the radar for being caught paying. In the end it doesn't really matter what the dynamics of it end up being. If it pays off to ransom, it will still happen, and I think there will always be a way to make it pay off for quite a while. The only real solution is better security that makes it unprofitable to even attempt to breach a company that makes a random possible. Threatening legal consequences for the victim is a very sideways way to go about achieving the goal of deterring the bad guys.