Pelosi says firms should not pay ransoms to hackers
By Mike Lillis - 05/13/21 12:41 PM EDT
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warned Thursday that private firms should reject hackers' demands for ransoms, just hours after reports emerged that a major energy company had paid almost $5 million to help restore service following a crippling ransomware attack.
Pelosi emphasized that she had no window into the internal management deliberations of the Colonial Pipeline Company, a private firm that runs a massive, 5,500-mile network of petroleum pipelines from the Gulf Coast to the major population centers on the East Coast.
But when asked if firms should pay out such ransoms, she didn't hesitate.
"No," Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol. "The point is that we don't want people to think that there's money in it for them to threaten the security of a critical infrastructure in our country."
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https://thehill.com/homenews/house/553374-pelosi-says-firms-should-not-pay-ransoms-to-hackers
