Australia mulling ban on paying ransom to hackers

Canberra, The Gulf Observer: Australian Home Minister Clare O’Neil says Canberra plans to look at outlawing ransom payments to cyber criminals, after hackers, allegedly based in Russia, demanded $10 million to stop leaking data of almost a million Australians, including PM Albanese.

Australia’s Home Minister Clare O’Neil has said the government would consider making illegal the paying of ransoms to cyber hackers, following recent cyber attacks affecting millions of Australians.

Asked on ABC television on Sunday whether the government planned to look at outlawing ransom payments to cyber criminals, O’Neil said “that’s correct”.”We will do that in the context of … cyber strategy,” she said.

Australia’s biggest health insurer, Medibank Private Ltd , last month suffered a massive cyber attack, leaking data of nearly a million people, including PM Anthony Albanese, as Australia grapples with a rise in hacks. Singapore Telecommunications-owned telecoms company Optus, Australia’s second largest telco, along with at least eight other companies, have been breached since September.

The comments come after O’Neil, on Saturday, formalised a new cyber-policing model between the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Signals Directorate – which intercepts electronic communications from foreign countries – to do “new tough policing” on cybercrime.

Around 100 officers would be part of the new partnership between the two federal agencies, which would act as a joint standing operation against cyber criminals.

The taskforce would “day in, day out, hunt down the scumbags who are responsible for these malicious crimes”, she said.