mnemonic, all government agencies and the majority of organisations in the security community advise against paying ransom to the criminal groups behind ransomware extortions. There are also legal considerations that need to be considered depending on the country or industry you are operating in.

There is however, a value in knowing more about how these criminal groups work. To shed some light on this, we’ve invited someone that often has been faced with the dilemma of whether or not to pay the ransom together with his clients; Rickey Gevers, Co-Founder of Responders B.V., a Dutch incident response company. These days most of the incidents he deals with are related to ransomware, and Rickey shares his experiences from negotiating with close to 30 ransomware groups on behalf of his clients – including also helping to pay them.

He shares his advice for how to prevent and prepare against ransomware threats. As well as what concerns most of his clients have when deciding how to deal with these groups, the main challenges they meet when negotiating with them, and how negotiating with ransomware groups requires a different approach than traditional negotiating tactics.

Sound production by Paul Jæger