In The Wall Street Journal, Ed McNicholas Discusses Cybersecurity, Ransomware Attacks, and Russia Sanctions

The ever-lengthening lists of sanctioned entities pose risks to global companies. Ensuring that ransomware payments are not going to sanctioned Russian entities has recently become "much harder,” notes data, privacy & cybersecurity partner and practice co-leader Ed McNicholas in The Wall Street Journal. “The overlap of the rise of ransomware and then these pervasive sanctions against Russia has created quite a firestorm in terms of the ability to pay ransoms.”

Traditionally, the list of entities under sanction has been mostly relevant to those in financial services, but recent surges in ransomware attacks have meant that cybersecurity experts to do their utmost to ensure ransom payments are not being delivered to blacklisted entities.