Australia may forbid paying ransom to online criminals.
Following a recent cyberattack, Australia plans to make it illegal to pay ransomware to hackers.
Following recent cyberattacks that affected millions of Australians, Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil stated on Sunday that the government would explore making it criminal to pay ransom to online hackers.
As Australia struggles with an increase in hacking, the country’s largest health insurance, Medibank Private Ltd, was the victim of a significant cyberattack last month.
Since September, at least eight other businesses, including Optus, the second-largest telco in Australia and controlled by Singapore Telecommunications, have been compromised.
O’Neil responded “that’s accurate” when asked on ABC television on Sunday if the government intended to investigate into making ransom payments to online criminals illegal.
We will carry out that within the framework of our cyber strategy, she added.
The remarks follow O’Neil’s formalisation of a new cyber-policing paradigm on Saturday between the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Signals Directorate, which monitors foreign electronic communications and conducts “new harsh policing” on cybercrime.
The new collaboration between the two federal agencies would include about 100 officers and function as a cooperative ongoing operation against cyber criminals.
She claimed that the group will “day in and day out, seek for the scumbags who are accountable for these heinous actions.”
The attack on Medibank, which stole information from over 10 million current and past clients, was allegedly carried out by hackers located in Russia, according to the AFP earlier this week.
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Attorney General Mark Dreyfus on Saturday declined to comment when asked if the latest cyberattacks on Australians were carried out by the Russian-based ransomware group REvil, but he did call it a “highly organised criminal gang” with headquarters in Russia.
The government, according to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, is doing everything it can to lessen the effects of the Medibank hack and has established up a phone line for impacted clients to call and request assistance from both the government and Medibank.
