The UK government is consulting on proposals to protect hospitals, railways and public services from ransomware attacks.
The NCSC managed 430 cyber incidents between September 2023 and August 2024, including 13 ransomware incidents which were deemed to be nationally significant and posed serious harm to essential services or the wider economy. Reporting to the National Crime Agency indicates the number of UK victims appearing on ransomware data leak sites has also doubled since 2022.
Ransomware is malicious software which infects a victim’s computer and demands a ransom payment from them to give them back access to their system, for their data to be restored, and often for the hackers not to publish the victim’s data on the web.
The Home Office is consulting on the following three proposals:
- A targeted ban on ransomware payments for all public sector bodies and critical national infrastructure – expanding the existing ban on ransomware payments by government departments, and aiming to make essential services unattractive targets for ransomware crime.
- A ransomware payment prevention regime – aimed at increasing the National Crime Agency’s awareness of live attacks and criminal ransom demands, providing victims with advice and guidance before they decide how to respond, and enabling payments to known criminal groups and sanctioned entities to be blocked.
- A mandatory reporting regime for ransomware incidents – aimed at maximising the intelligence used by UK law enforcement agencies to warn of emerging ransomware threats, and target their investigations on the most prolific and damaging organised ransomware groups.
The consultation ends on 8 April 2025.
