Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Have cyber criminals been swindling taxpayers?
The paper says that Dan Jarvis has suggested that hostile actors could have extorted thousands from organisations like the NHS without the Government knowing because there is no mandatory reporting regime.
Now the Home Office has launched a consultation on how to crack down on ransomware, with plans under consideration to ban all public sector bodies from making any payments:
Proposals also include a mandatory reporting regime and payment prevention system, designed to increase the National Crime Agency’s awareness of live attacks and block payments to known criminal groups and sanctioned entities.
Speaking to broadcasters on Tuesday’s morning media round, Mr Jarvis said cyber criminals based in countries like Russia are “quite literally holding our country to ransom” and warned the problem was “extensive.”
Asked how much public bodies had paid out in recent years, Mr Jarvis said “significant” sums had been handed over, telling Times Radio: “Millions of pounds have been paid.
“It’s a huge problem internationally.”
On how much the NHS had given, Mr Jarvis said: “The truth of the matter is we don’t know the precise figures, because there isn’t a mandatory reporting regime.”
Asked whether that meant that a trust could have paid out thousands of pounds to criminals to get its computers back without the Government knowing about it, he said: “In theory, that is the case, and that’s why we’re looking to change the law to bring in a mandatory reporting regime so we’ve got much more visibility of these kind of activities.
“But fundamentally, this is about putting measures in place that will ensure that we are much less vulnerable to these attacks in the future.
“We are working internationally with our allies as well, but these cyber criminals are incredibly devious in the tactics that they use, but it is the wrong approach for public sector authorities to actually pay these ransoms, because… there’s absolutely no guarantee even if they were to pay the ransom, they get the information that they require.”
Internet fraud is a massive concern, but if the government doesnt know if it has been a victim then how are they going to stop it in future?
