Security News > 2021 > June > Wray: FBI Frowns on Ransomware Payments Despite Recent Trend
The FBI's director told lawmakers Thursday that the bureau discourages ransomware payments to hacking groups even as major companies in the past month have participated in multimillion-dollar transactions aimed at getting their systems back online.
Besides the fact that such payments can encourage additional cyberattacks, victims may not automatically get back their data despite forking over millions, "And that's not unknown to happen," Wray said.
In ransomware attacks, hackers lock up and encrypt a victim's data and demand a payment in order to return it.
Some recent major corporate targets have responded by paying the ransom, fearing that a prolonged shutdown of their businesses could have catastrophic consequences for the country and disrupt crucial supply chains.
The Justice Department has said it was able to recover the majority of the ransomware payment after locating the virtual wallet used by the hackers.
Wray said that in addition to helping companies in that way, the FBI also in certain instances has been able to obtain the encryption keys of hackers and unlock the seized data without any payment being made.