A single cyberattack can inflict damage worth more than the total global ransom payments for an entire year. The attack on Jaguar Land Rover necessitated a £1.5 billion government loan, showcasing the astronomical, value-destroying ripple effects on the wider economy.
Criminals find it more effective to cause massive, visible operational disruption than to subtly encrypt data. Smashing systems digitally creates immediate, unbearable pain for businesses, forcing them to pay to resume operations, not just to recover files.
Official fatality counts rely on media reports, which are sparse in conflict zones with poor telecommunications. This leads to severe underreporting of deaths and creates absurd data artifacts where stable countries can appear more dangerous than war-torn nations.
Hackers gain initial network access by repeatedly calling large, outsourced IT help desks. They socially engineer call center staff until one handler eventually makes a mistake and provides credentials, creating the toehold needed for a full-scale breach.
The health benefits of chocolate come from flavanols, and their content is determined by processing, not just cocoa percentage. Contrary to popular belief, independent studies have found that some milk chocolate bars contain significantly more flavanols than some dark ones.
Treating ransomware payments like terrorist financing by making them illegal could eliminate the market for these attacks. While causing short-term pain for hacked companies, this bold government move would attack the supply-side economics of cybercrime, making it unprofitable.