ANOTHER RANSOMWARE ATTACK: “BLOCKING OF ASSETS”?
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Risultati della traduzione
Risultato di traduzione
The National Cybersecurity Agency has released the news of a massive hacker attack against thousands of systems around the world, including Italy. This is a global ransomware attack that exploits the vulnerabilities of certain outdated systems to encrypt the data contained and subsequently ask for the payment of a ransom to get it back. Yet another episode of cybercrime that confirms the 2022 trend. In fact, last year alone, more than 150 companies were defrauded in our country for a total amount of over 20 million euros (only 4 million were recovered thanks to the intervention of the Postal Police). What happened once again turns the spotlight on the opportunity to prevent – and therefore prohibit – the payment of the ransom by the victims in order to stem the criminal phenomenon. In particular, the Italian legal system, unlike other countries, has not expressly provided for a prohibition in this sense and has not even provided the judicial authority with the tools to block any payment of the affected subjects. In the face of the exponential increase in the number of cybercrimes, the issue of extending the so-called “blocking of assets” also to the hypotheses of a cyber attack. Specifically, during the season of kidnappings for extortion purposes, the legislator intervened through Law no. 82 of 1991 providing for the possibility for the Public Prosecutor to request the seizure of assets belonging to the kidnapped person, his relatives, as well as all those with respect to whom there was a well-founded reason to believe that they could pay the ransom price. Due to the spread of episodes of computer crime for extortion purposes, the theme of extending this discipline also to the ransomware branch is making a comeback, as is already the case in the United States of America. The U.S. model, in fact, prevents companies affected by cyber attacks from paying the ransom. In addition to the obvious economic savings for companies, it would eliminate the hackers’ prospect of earnings at the root, thus making them desist from carrying out the criminal action.
