The Bill that would require entities to inform the Australian government before they make a ransomware payment has been introduced to the Senate.
The federal opposition has reintroduced its ransomware payments Bill, this time to the Senate after the Bill failed to get off the ground in the House of Representatives. The Ransomware Payments Bill 2021, if passed, would require organisations to inform the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) before a payment was made to a criminal organisation in response to a ransomware attack. The Bill was originally introduced into the lower house in June by Shadow Assistant Minister for Cyber Security Tim Watts, but in a joint statement with Shadow Minister for Home Affairs Kristina Keneally, the pair said the government failed to bring it on for debate. «Minister Andrews says cybersecurity and ransomware are one of her highest priorities, but we’ve seen little in the way of action to reduce the onslaught of attacks against Australian organisations by foreign cyber criminals,» the statement said. «That’s why Labor has been once again forced to show the leadership on cybersecurity that’s been missing since the election of this Prime Minister by introducing this Bill in the Senate.» According to Watts, such a scheme would be a policy foundation for a «coordinated government response to the threat of ransomware, providing actionable threat intelligence to inform law enforcement, diplomacy, and offensive cyber operations».
