Above: Jackie Koven, Chainalysis Head of Cyber Intelligence, Sean Farrell (Lead Counsel, Cybercrime Enforcement Team, Microsoft), Megan Stifel (Chief Strategy Officer, Institute for Security and Technology), and Andrew Davis (General Counsel & Chief Risk Officer, Kivu Consulting).

An intriguing panel discussion on ransomware at Chainalysis #Links24 event recently focusing on the crypto payment aspect. Many lessons in here for Caribbean policy makers.

Key points:

• AI as an enabler:  Threat actors are getting better at communication in English using AI ChatGPT. Instance of victim being pressured to make payment as AI doctored photo of family going to school.
• Number of payments going down, but payments is still over $1B. Payments made in 33% of cases last year and thus far in 2024 it’s still trending in same way. Victims are required to inform DHS after payment is made.
• In the takedown of #ColonialPipeline seizing crypto affected other victims. Victims need to be kept in loop. Informationsharing in such cases requires clarity in law.
  
• Sanctions have been useful e.g. OFAC sanctioned #GenesisMarket (2023) – online marketplace allowed for the sale of several different forms of stolen PII such as credentials for email addresses, social media accounts, bank accounts, and cryptocurrency service accounts, all available to be perused in a searchable database.
• On the question on making ransomware payments illegal – Difficult to reach consensus on this and the answer at present is ‘maybe but not right now’.
• Better resilience in the system needed before making payments illegal. Recovery fund for significant cyber incidents may be needed to be put in place first. Making payment illegal may hurt smaller victims in the short term.
  
• Takes less than a day to learn tricks now. #ScatterSpider #SIMswapping involved a 20 something year old guy – Ecosystem shift required to make the performance of bad acts seem less appealing.
• Presence needed in communities where ransomware actors are recruited from ‘script kiddies’ – offer alternatives like enrollment in bug bounty programmes, use gamification techniques to give them social status rather than have them go to the dark side.
• Joint sequenced operations are required.

Pinaka Consulting Ltd is proud to announce partnership with FLEXXON and bring their AI enabled hardware ransomware protection for laptops and enterprise servers. Product launch and live demo event in May 2024 when the Flexxon team will be onsite in Trinidad and Tobago right after RSA Conference

To join the waitlist for this event please get in contact!