Towards Resilient Negotiation With Ransomware Criminals

Ransomware attacks on organizations have increased exponentially in recent years and the need for understanding the associated negotiation process has become apparent. Until now, however, surprisingly little is known about the process, from organizations receiving a ransomware note to the negotiation process and its outcome. Our project will attempt to contribute to this research gap by examining authentic transcripts of ransomware negotiations provided by the cyber security company in our consortium. We will base our analysis on prior negotiation literature exploring three theoretical angles: (I) the highly standardized starting point, (II) the resemblance of ransomware and hostage negotiations, and (III) the cultural aspect of the interactions. We will illustrate some firstly acquired case material and some preliminary conclusions from our analysis. The overall project aim is to help organizations negotiate more effectively, improving their cyber resilience.