On 5 August, Law 360 reported that paying off cybercriminals to return operations to normal could be a violation of US sanctions, depending on the hackers’ status. The article cites the case of Garmin, which restored access to its systems by paying off the criminals who used the WastedLocker malware to infiltrate Garmin’s systems. However, US authorities had designated Evil Corp, the alleged developer of WastedLocker, in December together with 2 Russian nationals accused of leading the group. OFAC has yet to impose any fines for companies paying ransoms to sanctioned groups, but analysts say companies should try to assess the status of any potential attacker before paying a ransom.
