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The Most Expensive Ransoms Ever Paid · The Infographics Show Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome curious minds to beyond infographics. We're your shortcut to
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: being genuinely well informed.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: That's right, And today we're starting with the phrase everyone
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: knows right, a king's ransom exactly?
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: It just instantly paints a picture, doesn't it. Overflowing treasure chests,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: desperate situations.
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  Speaker 2: Huge stakes. But what does it actually mean today? I mean,
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  Speaker 2: has the meaning shifted?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: Or maybe the cost itself.
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  Speaker 1: That's the core question we're tackling because in our hyper
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: connected world, ransom looks well, it looks very different.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes it really does. It's gone far beyond just gold
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: and jewels.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely so today on beyond infographics, we're not just glancing
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  Speaker 1: at the surface. We're diving deep into the surprisingly complex
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  Speaker 1: world of ransom.
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  Speaker 2: You're going to trace it all the way back literally
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  Speaker 2: the price paid to free captured kings, you know, rated cities, and.
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  Speaker 1: Then jump forward to like modern tycoons held hostage for
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: staggering sums.
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  Speaker 2: And then the really big shift today's digital battlegrounds, invisible
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  Speaker 2: attackers demanding fortunes for data they've locked up.
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  Speaker 1: It's a huge journey. We'll explore the common threads because
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  Speaker 1: some things like human motivations. They don't change much.
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  Speaker 2: Do they not. Fundamentally No, greed, fear power, they're always there,
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  Speaker 2: but the methods, the scale radically different.
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  Speaker 1: By the end of this you'll get a much clearer
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  Speaker 1: picture of what really shapes the price of freedom, whether
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  Speaker 1: it was a thousand years ago or you know, right now.
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  Speaker 2: So, yeah, settle in. It's going to be quite a
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  Speaker 2: ride through history and into the present.
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  Speaker 1: And hey, if you find this whole exploration fascinating, if
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  Speaker 1: it gets you thinking, we'd really appreciate it. If you
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: could leave us a five star rating.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and maybe share beyond infographics with a friend. It
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: genuinely helps us reach more people who are curious about
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: this stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, let's do this part one. Where did that phrase
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: a king's ransom actually come from the historical roots?
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's fascinating because it wasn't just like a metaphor
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  Speaker 2: back then. It was literal. In medieval warfare, particularly right.
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  Speaker 1: Like an Age of Knights and castles.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly, capturing a high ranking night or a noble alive
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  Speaker 2: on the battlefield was often way more valuable than killing them.
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  Speaker 1: Oh okay, so it was an economic calculation almost pretty much.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was baked into the whole system of chivalric warfare.
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  Speaker 2: It didn't just defeat your enemy. You captured an asset,
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  Speaker 2: a high value individual you could trade for a hefty sum.
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  Speaker 1: But in the middle of a chaotic battle, how did
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  Speaker 1: they even know who is valuable? Everyone's covered in armor.
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  Speaker 2: Ah, that's where heraldry comes in. Those coats of arms,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: the crests, the banners, they weren't just fancy decorations.
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  Speaker 1: They were like ID tags essentially.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, a very visible, very public ID tag. It
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  Speaker 2: shouted out your family, your rank, your status, and by extension,
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  Speaker 2: your potential ransom value. It was a kind of medieval
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  Speaker 2: credit rating system painted right on your shield.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, a credit rating you were in battle. That's something else. Yeah, okay,
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  Speaker 1: So let's talk about some actual kings and their price tags.
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  Speaker 1: King Louis the ninth of France twelve fifty a d.
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  Speaker 1: What happened there, right, silly?
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  Speaker 2: He was captured during the Seventh Crusade. Things went badly
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  Speaker 2: wrong for his army in Egypt, lots of illness, military.
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  Speaker 1: Defeats, so he ends up a prisoner of the Mamluks exactly.
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  Speaker 2: The manlooks of the Bari line, a huge blow for France.
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  Speaker 2: Obviously they're king, a crusader king captured.
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  Speaker 1: And the price what did it cost to get a
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  Speaker 1: saint king back?
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  Speaker 2: The demand was around eighty thousand bizants. These were gold coins,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: pretty widely used.
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  Speaker 1: Then. Eighty thousand gold coins sounds like a fortune.
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  Speaker 2: It was definitely a lot of money. Yeah, estimates suggest
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  Speaker 2: it could pay for like food transport supplies for maybe
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  Speaker 2: forty four hundred soldiers for two full years.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, that puts it in perspective a huge logistical cost.
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  Speaker 2: Huge, But interestingly, contemporary sources don't always describe it as
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: you know, insanely astronomical. It was big, but perhaps within
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  Speaker 2: the realms of possibility for a kingdom.
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  Speaker 1: Not like say, bankrupting the nation entirely.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe not quite. It's worth contrasting. For instance, Saladin had
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  Speaker 2: earlier promised a tribute of two hundred thousand bezants that
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: never got paid. So eighty thousand, while massive, wasn't necessarily
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: the highest theoretical things you're floating around.
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  Speaker 1: And how did they pay it all at once?
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  Speaker 2: No, it was actually paid in two installments. They released
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  Speaker 2: some of the army after the first payment, and then
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  Speaker 2: Louis the rest after the second is quite transactional.
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  Speaker 3: A structured payment plan for a king, okay, But the
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  Speaker 3: one everyone really thinks of when they hear king's ransom
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  Speaker 3: has to be Richard the Lionheart right, England eleven ninety two.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, Richard the sext His story is the reason
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  Speaker 2: that phrase stuck so powerfully. He wasn't even captured in battle,
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: which is interesting, right.
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  Speaker 1: He was coming back from the Third Crusade.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly trying to get home over land in disguise actually,
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  Speaker 2: but he was recognized and captured by Duke Leopold the
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: fifth of Austria. Leopold had a grudge. He blamed Richard
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: for his cousin's death.
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  Speaker 1: So part political revenge, part mass of payday.
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  Speaker 2: Definitely both. Leebol handed him over to the Holy Roman
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  Speaker 2: Emperor Henry the six, who then set the price.
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  Speaker 1: And that price was the legendary one.
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  Speaker 2: That was the one, a truly staggering one hundred and
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  Speaker 2: fifty thousand marks. That's about sixty five thousand pounds of.
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  Speaker 1: Silver, okay, sixty five thousand pounds of silver. How much
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  Speaker 1: was that in terms of like the English economy, it.
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  Speaker 2: Was almost unbelievable. Estimates say it represented two, maybe even
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  Speaker 2: three years of the entire income of the English crown.
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  Speaker 1: Three years of the whole country's revenue just gone pretty much.
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  Speaker 2: To raise it, they had to impose this massive kingdom
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  Speaker 2: wide tax is basically equivalent to a quarter twenty five
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  Speaker 2: percent of every single man's annual income in England.
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  Speaker 1: A twenty five percent tax on everyone, just to free
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  Speaker 1: the king.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, and it still took two incredibly hard years to
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  Speaker 2: gather all that money. People were bled dry.
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  Speaker 1: And you mentioned earlier this links to robin Hood.
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  Speaker 2: That's a huge part of the context. Yeah, the legends
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  Speaker 2: of Robinhood fighting against the greedy Sheriff of Nottingham and
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  Speaker 2: Prince John who was ruling while Richard was away and
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  Speaker 2: frankly wasn't too keen on raising the ransom Quickly, those
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: stories gained massive traction, partly because of the very real,
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  Speaker 2: very harsh economic suffering caused by these taxes. It wasn't
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  Speaker 2: just abstract tyranny. It was a direct consequence of freeing
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  Speaker 2: the king.
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  Speaker 1: Wow. So the legend has deep roots in this specific
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  Speaker 1: historical economic crisis. Trying to put that one hundred and
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  Speaker 1: fifty thousand marks into modern money must be almost impossible.
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  Speaker 2: It's incredibly difficult. Yeah, you can look at the price
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  Speaker 2: of silver. Maybe get a figure like, I don't know,
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  Speaker 2: thirteen pointy eight million dollars based on twenty fifteen prices,
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  Speaker 2: which sounds kind.
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  Speaker 1: Of low actually for three years of national income.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly because the buying power was totally different. Some economic
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  Speaker 2: historians argue that before the huge influx of silver from
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: the Americas changed everything, the actual value what that silver
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  Speaker 2: could command in terms of goods, labor, land, it could
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  Speaker 2: be equivalent to over three billion dollars today three billion.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, that sounds more like a king's ransom, right.
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  Speaker 2: It shows how much value was concentrated in the monarch.
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  Speaker 2: His capture wasn't just inconvenient. It was a potential national catastrophe,
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  Speaker 2: paralyzing the kingdom financially and politically.
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  Speaker 1: An existential threat. Almost did these prices keep going up?
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  Speaker 1: What about King John the Second of France? He was
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  Speaker 1: captured later thirteen fifty six Battle of Poitiers, Ah.
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  Speaker 2: John the Good. Yes, his ransom was set at three
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  Speaker 2: million crowns. Another absolute enormous figure.
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  Speaker 1: Three million crowns. How do we even grasp that?
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  Speaker 2: Okay, here's a way to think about it. Maybe more
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  Speaker 2: tangible than just crowns. For that kind of money, in
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  Speaker 2: that era, you could buy roughly one hundred thousand horses.
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  Speaker 1: One hundred thousand horses.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, if you try a rough modern comparison, say
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  Speaker 2: an average horse today costs maybe five thousand dollars, that
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  Speaker 2: calculation for one hundred and sixteen thousand odd horses gets
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  Speaker 2: you somewhere around five hundred and eighty four million and
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  Speaker 2: twenty fifteen dollars. It's a rough estimate, but it gives
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  Speaker 2: you a sense of scale.
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  Speaker 1: And we need to remember horses back then weren't just
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  Speaker 1: like pets or for racing.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely not. A horse was vital. It was transportation,
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  Speaker 2: it was farm labor, think plowing fields, It was logistics
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  Speaker 2: for trade and armies. And critically, it was a weapon
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  Speaker 2: of war. Cavalry was decisive.
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  Speaker 1: So one hundred thousand horses represents immense economic power, agricultural capacity,
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  Speaker 1: military strength.
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  Speaker 2: Precisely, it's a measure of a kingdom's ability to function,
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  Speaker 2: to defend itself, to project power. Losing that much potential
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  Speaker 2: capital was crippling.
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  Speaker 1: It's just mind boggling. And speaking of mind boggling ransoms
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  Speaker 1: and tragic outcomes, we have to talk about Ottawalpa, the
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  Speaker 1: last Inca emperor, fifteen thirty two, The Room of Gold.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Ottawalpa's story is it's one of the most famous
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  Speaker 2: and perhaps most heartbreaking examples, captured by Francisco Pizzarro. And
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  Speaker 2: get this, only one hundred and sixty nine Spanish conquistadors.
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  Speaker 1: One hundred and sixty nine guys capture and emperor.
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  Speaker 2: Well, context is crucial. Ottawappa was actually escorted by something
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  Speaker 2: like six thousand Inca attendants, but they were largely unarmed,
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  Speaker 2: and the Inca Empire itself was just coming out of
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  Speaker 2: a really brutal civil war, a succession battle. It was weakened, vulnerable.
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  Speaker 2: Pizarro exploited that ruthlessly.
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  Speaker 1: So Ottawapa is captured and he makes this incredible.
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  Speaker 2: Offer, desperate to save himself and his empire. Yeah, he
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  Speaker 2: offered to fill a large room the accounts say about
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  Speaker 2: twenty two feet long, seventeen feet wide maybe eight feet high,
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  Speaker 2: once with gold objects and twice with silver objects, all
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  Speaker 2: within two months.
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  Speaker 1: Fill a room with gold. That sounds like something out
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  Speaker 1: of a fairy tale.
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  Speaker 2: It does, and the Incas, showing incredible loyalty and resourcefulness,
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  Speaker 2: actually delivered. They brought ornaments, statues, plates, jewelry enough to
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  Speaker 2: fulfill the promise. Estimates are around thirteen thousand pounds of
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  Speaker 2: gold and twenty six thousand pounds of silver.
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  Speaker 1: And the Spanish just melted it all down, all that artistry.
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  Speaker 2: Yep, melted it into bars into billions, easier to divide,
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  Speaker 2: easier to transport, and crucially easier for the Spanish crown
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  Speaker 2: to take its royal fifth tax.
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  Speaker 1: What a cultural tragedy. How much was it actually worth?
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  Speaker 1: People throw around huge number.
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  Speaker 2: The estimates are all over the place, honestly, from maybe
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  Speaker 2: twelve million dollars to over two billion dollars in modern terms.
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  Speaker 2: Part of the confusion is that fill a room sounds
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  Speaker 2: like solid gold, right yeah, But it was objects, lots
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  Speaker 2: of air between statues, jewelry, not solid bars. So the
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: actual volume of metal was less than you might imagine
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  Speaker 2: just hearing a roomful. And of course five hundred years
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: of retelling tends to inflate the story quite a bit.
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  Speaker 1: Right, the legend grows. Some estimates of the gold amount
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  Speaker 1: are wildly different, aren't they.
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  Speaker 2: Massively You see figures from maybe seven or eight tons
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  Speaker 2: up to like one hundred and seven hundred and eighty
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  Speaker 2: tons of gold, which is just impossible. Total world goal
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  Speaker 2: production in the entire fifteen hundreds was maybe thirty six tons,
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  Speaker 2: So while it was a huge amount, it was likely
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: at the much lower end of those legendary figures.
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  Speaker 1: Still a fortune, though. But even paying this colossal ransom
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  Speaker 1: didn't save Aldoholpa.
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  Speaker 2: No, that's the ultimate tragedy. He delivered the treasure and
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  Speaker 2: months later the Spanish executed him anyway, on fabricated charges.
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  Speaker 2: It was never just about the gold for Pizarro. It
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  Speaker 2: was about breaking the Inca power structure, seizing control.
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  Speaker 1: A brutal lesson that paying doesn't always guarantee safety.
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  Speaker 2: Not at all. Yeah, and there's this kind of weird
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  Speaker 2: historical echo. Some people suggest that a noticeable proportion of
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: the gold circulating in Joey today might actually trace its
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: or urgins back to the Andes, back to that melted
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: down Inca treasure.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, tangible link back to that moment. Okay, let's shift
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  Speaker 1: from individual rulers to collective ransoms. The Danegeld paying off
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: the Vikings. This was basically nationwide extortion right from eight
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: forty five to ten fourteen, A d or so exactly.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: The Danegeld literally Dane gold or Dane tax was just
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: vast sums of silver paid by rulers in England and Francia,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: primarily to Viking fleets to get them to go away,
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: to stop them from raiding and pillaging.
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  Speaker 1: So protection money on a massive scale.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely like an eight forty five Charles, the Bald King
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  Speaker 2: of West Francia paid seven thousand pounds of silver to
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: a Viking fleet just to spare Paris. Imagine the calculation,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: pay this fortune or watch your capital burn.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: And the Anglo Saxons and England paid even more, didn't
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: they over a longer period, Oh much more.
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  Speaker 2: There was a recurring nightmare for them over about fifty years.
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  Speaker 2: Estimates suggest they paid maybe two hundred and fifty thousand
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  Speaker 2: pounds of silver in total, huge individual payments to ten
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  Speaker 2: thousand pounds in nine hundred and ninety one twenty one
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  Speaker 2: pounds in ten fourteen.
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  Speaker 1: Where did they even get that much silver?
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  Speaker 2: It was brutal raised through national taxes hitting everyone. But
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  Speaker 2: also they leaned heavily on monasteries and churches, which were
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: often very wealthy landowners, essentially coercing them into contributing massive amounts.
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  Speaker 1: So it sounds like an early version of the modern dilemma,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: do you pay off attackers to make them stop?
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: It's a definite historical parallel. Yeah, it kind of do
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: we negotiate with terrorist's question, but centuries earlier.
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  Speaker 1: But the key difference, the really depressing part, was.
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  Speaker 2: The vikings usually came back paying them off once, rarely
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  Speaker 2: bought lasting piece if anything, had just showed them you
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: had money and were willing to pay. It incentivized more raids,
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: bigger demands, a truly vicious cycle.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, before we leave the ancient and medieval world, we
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: have to talk about Julius Caesar and the Pirates seventy
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: five pc. This story is just amazing.
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  Speaker 2: It's brilliant, isn't It shows his personality even as a
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  Speaker 2: young man. So Caesar gets captured by a solution pirates
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  Speaker 2: near an island called Pharmacuse.
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  Speaker 1: They demand a ransom, standard pirate procedure. How much did
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: they ask for?
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  Speaker 2: Twenty talents of silver, which was apparently sort of the
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: going rate for a captured Roman nobleman or senator.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, seems reasonable for a future dictator, but Caesar.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Caesar reportedly just laughed in their faces, Yeah, said it
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: was an insultingly low amount for someone like him.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: He demanded they ask for more money.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, he insisted they raise the ransom to fifty talents
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: about one point five tons of silver, claimed he was
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: worth far more. And then he spent the next thirty
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: eight days basically treating them like his staff. What He'd
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: make them listen to his speeches and poems, critique their
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: lack of appreciation for his genius, join their games, order
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: them around, and apparently he kept joking, or maybe not choking,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: that he'd come back and crucify every single one of
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: them once he was.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Free, and pirates just thought he was eccentric.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: He seemed to find him amusing. This arrogant Roman probably
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: thought his threats were just bluster.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Big mistake. What happened after the ransom was paid?
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  Speaker 2: So he has paid the fifty talents, he was released,
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: and what does Caesar do. He immediately raises a naval force,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: sales back, finds the pirates, who were probably stunned, captures
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: the lot of them, takes back his fifty talents. Did
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: he He crucified them, just like he said he would,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: although Plutarch notes he showed a bit of mercy by
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: having their throats cut first so they wouldn't suffer too
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: long on the crosses.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Wow, okay, message received, don't mess with Caesar. What a
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: story about psychology, power and follow through.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's chilling, little glimpse into the future leader.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: All right, let's jump forward quite a bit to the
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: modern era, but still in the realm of physical ransom.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: The nineteen seventies saw this explosion, almost a golden age
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: of kidnappings, especially in places like Argentina and Italy. What
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: was driving that?
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the seventies were a real hotspot. In Argentina. It
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: was largely driven by political motives. Leftist corilla groups like
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: the ERP and the Montanaros were very active for their goals.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: They were fighting against the government obviously, but also against
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: what they saw exploitative capitalism. They needed funding for their operations,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: and Argentina was also dealing with rampant inflation that was
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: hitting the working class hard, so they targeted symbols of capitalism,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: often foreign business executives.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Kidnapping for dollars, but with a political ideology behind it exactly.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: The ransoms were often huge. John R. Thompson from Firestone
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: in seventy three three million dollars in Rieque Mets from
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: Mercedes bens in seventy five five million dollars.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: And in the Mets case, they demanded more than just money.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Right, that's right. The Montenaros forced Mercedes Benz to rehire
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: over one hundred workers they'd fired, so a clear social
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: demand alongside the cash.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: There was one guy, Charles Lockwood. He had exceptionally bad.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Luck, unbelievably bad luck. A steel company director, kidnapped in
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: seventy three for two point five million dollars, then just
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: over two years later kidnapped again in seventy five, this
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: time for ten million dollars. He understandably left Argentina after that.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: I don't blame him twice. But the biggest ransom from
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: that whole Argentinian wave was the Boorn Brothers.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Or hey in one born. Yeah, big figures in the
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: green trading business. The Montennaris held him for nine months
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy four.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Nine months. That's an incredibly long time.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: A horrific ordeal, and the ransom was sixty million dollars
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: at the time, the largest physical ransom ever paid.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Sixty million dollars in nineteen seventy four money. What's that today?
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Adjusted for inflation, that's over two hundred and ninety million
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: and twenty fifteen dollars. Just astronomical and tragically. The driver
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: was killed during the abduction. The family later moved their
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: business to Brazil. It just shows the scale and brutality
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: of these operations.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Absolutely devastating. Now shifting over to Italy round the same time,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, the John Paul Getty the third kidnapping.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: This one is infamous for different reasons, mostly the family's reaction.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, the Getty case is unique and chilling. John Paulgetti,
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: the third grandson of the oil Tittoon. John Paul Getty,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: who was then one of the richest men in the world,
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: kidnapped in Rome by the in drug Getta, the Calabrian mafia.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: And the grandfather. He wasn't exactly rushing to pay, was he?
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Notoriously no, The initial demand was seventeen million dollars. John
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Paul Getty famously refused, saying something like, I have fourteen
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: other grandchildren. If I pay one penny now, I'll have
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: fourteen kidnapped grandchildren.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Cold, unbelievably cold. What changed his mind?
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: The kidnappers cut off his grandson's ear and mailed it,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: along with a lock of his air to a newspaper.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, an ear.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, gruesome, proof of life and proof they were serious.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: That finally forced the grandfather's hand. But even then, even.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Then it wasn't straightforward.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: No, he negotiated the final ransom down to about three
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: million dollars when he only personally paid two point two
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: million dollars.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Why two point two million dollars, specifically.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Because that was the maximum amount that was tax deductible
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: for him under US law at the time.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: You're kidding. He paid the tax deductible portion. What about
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: the rest?
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: He lent the remaining eight hundred thousand dollars or so
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: to his son, the victim's father, at four percent interest.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: He charged his own son interest on the ransom money
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: for his kidnapped grandson.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: Yep, it's just a staggering example of cold, hard calculation
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: and deeply damaged family dynamics amid unimaginable wealth. The case
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: is also often discussed in terms of Stockholm syndrome. The
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: psychological connection the victim felt with his captors.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Over time just incredible and back in the US nineteen
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: seventy four, Patty Hurst media aires. Her story took a
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: completely different turn.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Totally different. Kidnapped by the Simbionese Liberation Army the SLA,
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: a small radical left wing group.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Their demands weren't just money either, were.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: They No, they were primarily political. Initially, they demanded seventy
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: million dollars worth of food be distributed to every poor
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: person in California, an impossible demand. Really, estimates put the
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: real cost closer to four hundred million dollars today.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: So what happened did the family try?
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: The Hurst family organized a two million dollar food distribution
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: in the Bay Area, which was chaotic and criticized. The
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: SLA then demanded another six million dollars, but it never happened,
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: And then came the twist.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: The twist being Patty Hurst joining them exactly.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: She released tapes denouncing her family, adopted the name Tania,
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: and was later seen partiating in an SLA bank robbery
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: holding a rifle.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: She became one of them.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Apparently, so she was arrested in nineteen seventy five. Her
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: trial was a media circus focused on whether she acted
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: under dress, if she was brainwashed. It became this huge
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: cultural moment debating coercion, identity, radical politics, very different from
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: a straightforward ransom case.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Wild times. If you're finding this journey through ransom history
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: compelling on beyond infographics, maybe take a second to leave
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: us that five star rating. It really helps. Okay, Let's
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: move to the nineties. Hong Kong Chunk Zi Kong aka.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Big Spender AH Big Spender, a legendary figure in Hong
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Kong's underworld, a mobster known for his incredibly flamboyant lifestyle
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: funded by audacious crimes, especially kidnapping the city's wealthiest tycoons.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: He wasn't subtle about it, not at all.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: He craved notoriety as much.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: As money, and he targeted some really big.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Names, the biggest. In nineteen ninety seven, he kidnapped Walter Quack,
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: head of Sun Hung Kai Properties, a massive real estate empire,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: held him for a week, apparently blindfolded in a wooden
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: container until reported seventy seven million dollar ransom was.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Paid seventy seven million Huge, but his most famous victim
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: was Victor lay Yes.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Victor Lee, son of Lee Kasheng, who was and still
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: is one of the richest men in Asia, if not
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: the world. Chung kidnapped Victor Lee in nineteen ninety six.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: What was the price for him a staggering one hundred
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: and thirty three million US dollars paid in cash. Reportedly,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Chung himself went to the Lee family mansion to collect it.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: He went to the house.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: The audacity incredible, right, And the story gets even crazier.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: After receiving the billion Hong Kong dollars, Chung supposedly called
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Lee Koshing the father thank him to ask for investment
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: advice on how to manage the ransom money he just
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: extorted from him.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Beyond audacious, that's almost surreal. What happened to Big spender?
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: His luck ran out. He fled to mainland China, where
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: the authorities had far less tolerance or his kind of
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: gangsterism than perhaps Hong Kong did at the time. He
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: was arrested, tried, convicted, and executed in ten ninety eight.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: A very swift end, a dramatic rise and fall. Okay,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: from urban tycoons to the open ocean. Modern piracy still
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: a thing, surprisingly, very.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Much still a thing, and it's complex. It's not usually
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: about you know, treasure chests anymore. It's driven by poverty,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: lack of opportunity, political instability, weak governance, particularly in regions
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: like the Horn of Africa Samalia.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Especially so desperate people turning to crime on the high seas.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: What are they targeting?
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Mainly large commercial vessels, oil tankers, container ships, bulk carriers. Yeah,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: they're after the valuable cargo, but more often they're kidnapping
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: the crew for.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Ransom holding sailor's hostage. Are the ransoms comparable to these
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: tycoon kidnappings?
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: They can be very significant, especially when a valuable ship
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: and cargo are involved. Take the Irene sl in twenty eleven,
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: a huge Greek oil tanker of VLCC carrying two hundred
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: million dollars worth of crude.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Oil two hundred million in oil.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Yep Somali pirates captured it. It was eventually released for
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: a ransom reported thirteen point five million dollars. That incident
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: really scooped the global shipping industry and highlighted the vulnerability of.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Oil routes any other major ones.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: The Samho Dream, a South Korean supertanker in twenty ten
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: carrying one hundred and sixty million dollars in oil, released
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: for around nine point five million dollars. That ransom was
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: famously delivered by helicopter dropped onto the deck.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Dropped from a helicopter like in a movie.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Pretty much, but the aftermath was in glamorous. The ship's
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: underwent bankrupt later, partly due to the costs and disruption.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: It shows the ripple effects.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: And it's not just history, right, this is still happening absolutely.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Just earlier this year twenty twenty four, the Envy Abdullah,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: a Magladeshi ship carrying coal, was seized with twenty three
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: crew released after a reported five million dollar ransom was
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: air dropped.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Five million dropped from the air. Wow? Are there other
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: hotspots beside Somalia?
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, the Gulf of Guinea off West Africa is notoriously
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: dangerous for ship hijackings and crew abductions, and the Singapore
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Strait has seen a huge spike in instance most opportunistic theft.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: But it's called the global epicenter of piracy risks.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Recently, and the pirates are getting smarter.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: They adapt using captured fishing vessels or sometimes even larger
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: merchant ships as motherships to launch the attacks much further
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: out at sea, beyond the reach of coastal patrols.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we've seen kings, tycoons, sailors. Let's circle back
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: to the idea of the king's ransom. What about modern
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: heads of state, presidents, prime ministers. Is kidnapping them for
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: ransom even a thing anymore? Or would it be pointless?
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: It's a really interesting question. Generally speaking, in stable developed countries,
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: kidnapping the head of state for a financial ransom is
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: probably pointless.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Why because the state wouldn't pay.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Partly that but also because modern states aren't usually as
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: dependent on the single person of the leader as say,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: a medieval monarchy was. There isn't that same sense of
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: the king being the state or having some kind of
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: divine right. Institutions are designed to continue functioning, So capturing.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: The leader and paralyze the country in the same way
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: not in the same way.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: No, an attack on a leader would be a massive
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: political crisis, a security nightmare, trigger huge response, but the
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: primary goal wouldn't likely be a simple cash ransom for
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: their release. It would be about political destabilization, making a statement,
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: maybe trying to force policy changes through terror.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: So that kind of ransom tactic is really only relevant
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: now in maybe very unstable.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Regions, exactly in places with weak governments ongoing conflict where
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: power is highly personalized. Maybe there kidnapping a leader could
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: still be seen as a way to extract concessions or money,
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: but in most of the world it shifted away from
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: ransom towards terrorism or political assassination.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Aims a crucial shift which brings us squarely into the
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: digital age. Part three ransomware where the hostage isn't a
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: person but our data.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: This is what a concept of ransom has just exploded
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: and transformed in the last couple of decades. We've gone
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: from physical capture to digital hostage, taking.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Holding bits and bytes ransom. How does it actually work?
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: At its core? Ransomware is malicious software malware that does
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: one of two main things. Either it encrypts your files
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: scrambles them so you can't access them, or it locks
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: you out of your entire computer.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Network and then demands payment to undo the damage.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Precisely, pay up, usually in cryptocurrency like bitcoin, because it's
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: harder to trace, and maybe they'll give you the decryption
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: key or unlock your system.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Where did this whole nasty idea start. It feels relatively new,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: but maybe it's older.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: The very first documented case was actually way back in
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine. The Aid's Trojan.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: The Aid's Trojan. What did it do?
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: It was pretty basic by today's standards. It hit file
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: directories and encrypted the file names on victims computers after
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: they'd installed it from a floppy disk, ironically disguised as
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: information about AIDS. Then it demanded one hundred and eighty
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: nine dollars be mailed to a peobox in Panama to.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Get a repair tool mailed to a peobox quaint Did.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: It work technically? Yes, but it had flaws. Security researchers
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: quickly found ways to reverse the file name encryption without paying.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: But it planted the seed. The idea of digital extortion
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: was born.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: So when did it get serious with proper encryption?
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: The theoretical groundwork was laid in nineteen ninety six by
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: two researchers at Columbia University, Adam Young and Modi Young.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: They coined the term cryptovirology.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Cryptovirology sounds ominous.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: It was. They propose using public key cryptography, the same
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: kind used for secure communication, for malicious purposes. The attacker
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: encrypts the victim's data with the public key, but only
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: the attacker has the corresponding private key needed to decrypt.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: It, making it mathematically impossible to get your data back
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: without the attacker's key.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Pretty much yeah, unless you have incredible computing power or
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: find a flaw in their specific implementation. They were actually
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: inspired by the face hugger in the movie Alien. This
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: idea of an attack that latches on and takes control cryptographically.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's a terrifying inspiration. When did this theory become practice?
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: We started seeing more sophisticated attempts in the early two thousand,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: things like GPE, code archiveists, kryzip. They began using stronger
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: RSA encryption, increasing the key size is like gp coo
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: dot ak using a ten to twenty four bit key,
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: which was considered unbreakable at the time.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: So the attackers were getting better the encryption stronger.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Steadily, yes. But the real turning point, the one that
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: unleashed the floodgates, was crypto Locker in twenty thirteen.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Crypto Locker, I remember that name. That was huge, wasn't.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: It absolutely massive? It spread widely, was highly effective and
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: used bitcoin for payments, making it much easier for the
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: criminals to collect money anonymously. Estamate suggested netted them something
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: like twenty seven million dollars in just its first.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Few months, twenty seven million from locking files YEP.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Its success basically created the blueprint. Suddenly everyone saw how
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: profitable ransomware could be, and we got a tidal wave
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: of copycats and variations. The modern ransomware era had begun.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: And then came Wantacry in twenty seventeen that felt like
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: it hit everyone.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Wantacry was a global pandemic of malware, truly unprecedented in scale.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: It infected hundreds of thousands of computers estimates are over
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: two hundred and thirty thousand across more than one hundred
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: and fifty countries in a matter of days.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: How did it spread so fast?
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: It exploited a vulnerability called eternal Blue, which was believed
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: to have been developed by and then leaked or stolen
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: from the US National Security Agency NSA. This exploit allowed
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: it to spread automatically between vulnerable Windows computers on the
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: same network without anyone even clicking a bad.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Link, so just jumped from machine to machine exactly.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: It hit major organizations. The UK's National Health Service NHS
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: was severely disrupted. Spanish telecom giant Telefonica FedEx the list
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: goes on all demanding a relatively small ransom three hundred
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: dollars in bitcoin, But the damage was immense.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: And wasn't there another big one right after that? Petya
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: or not Petya.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Later in twenty seventeen, Petya and a modified, more
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: destructive version called not Petya hit primarily in Ukraine but
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: spread globally too. This one was different, though, how so
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: It didn't just encrypt files. It targeted the master boot record,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: the very core part of the hard drive needed to
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: start to computer. And many animus believe not Peckya wasn't
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: really about ransom at all. The payment mechanism was flawed,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: suggesting the real goal might have been pure disruption, cyber
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: warfare almost disguised as.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Ransomware designed to destroy, not extort. Scary stuff. Okay, let's
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: talk about the money today. What are some of the
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: record breaking cyber ransoms we're seeing now? The numbers must
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: be insane.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: They are truly mind blowing. Ransomware is consistently called the
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: fastest growing type of cybercrime. Predictions suggests the global damage
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: costs not just ransoms, but downtime, recovery, reputation laws could
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: exceed two hundred and sixty five billion dollars a year
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: by twenty thirty.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: One quarter of a trillion dollars annually.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: That's the projection. Actual ransom payments hit a record of
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: about one point twenty five billion dollars in twenty twenty three. Interestingly,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: they dropped quite sharply in twenty twenty four, down to
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: around eight hundred and thirteen million dollars.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: With a drop good news.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Possibly some experts think it's due to more companies refusing
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: to pay better defenses and maybe law enforcement actions disrupting
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: the big players. But the demands and the pentil costs
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: are still huge.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: So what's the single most expensive attack we know of
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: in terms of total cost?
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: That dubious honor currently goes to the attack on Change
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Healthcare in February twenty twenty four. They're a massive US
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: healthcare payment.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Processor healthcare again critical infrastructure exactly.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: The attackers the alphv Blackcat group confirmed they received a
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: twenty two million dollar ransom payment, But the total cost
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: of Change Healthcare in the US healthcare system due to
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: the disruption estimated at a staggering two point eight seven billion.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Dollars billion, with a b how they.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Apparently stole six terabytes of sensitive data, but the main
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: cost was the disruption, a crippled payment processing for potentially
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: forty percent of all US medical claims. Patients couldn't get
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: prescriptions filled easily, doctors couldn't get paid, billing was paralyzed,
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: a nationwide mess, just crippling.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Were there any demands even bigger than that twenty two
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: million dollars even if not paid or not causing as
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: much total damage.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, the demand can be astronomical. Amyplc, a UK waste
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: disposal company, reportedly faced a two billion dollar demand from
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: the mount Locker Group in December twenty twenty.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Two billion dollars for a waste company.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Apparently they stole one hundred and forty three gigabytes of data,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: including sensitive government contracts and employee info. It's unclear if
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Amy paid anything close to that, likely not, but the
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: demand shows the sheer.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Ambition any other massive demands.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Media marked the huge European electronics retailer hit by the
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Hive Group in November twenty twenty one. Initial demand two
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: hundred and forty million dollars quarter of a billion, yeah
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: reports suggests it was negotiated down significantly, but the attacks
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: still encrypted over three thousand servers, shut down IT systems
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: and messed up store operations across the Netherlands and Germany.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: High was known for bypassing multi factor authentication, making them
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: particularly dangerous.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Even national institutions aren't safe. Royal Mail in the UK.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: YEP January twenty twenty three hit by the Lockbit Group,
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: another major player. They demanded eighty million dollars, later dropped
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: it to forty million dollars. The attack crippled Royal Mail's
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: international shipping systems for six weeks. They publicly refused to pay.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, so huge demands, massive disruption. What's the largest ransom
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: payment that we know for sure was actually paid?
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: That seems to be san Kora formerly a Marisurcebergen, a
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: US pharmaceutical giant, hit in February twenty twenty four. The
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: demand was reportedly one hundred and fifty million dollars and
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: they paid. Reports indicate they paid seventy five million dollars
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: in bitcoin in three installments. That makes it the largest
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: confirmed ransomware payment discovered so far. They lost patient data,
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: internal communications, a huge breach for a fortune five hundred company.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Seventy five million dollars just paid out. It's hard to fathom.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: What about attacks that maybe had smaller ransoms but huge
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: impacts on critical infrastructure.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Colonial pipeline is the classic example. There May twenty twenty one,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: major US fuel pipeline operator.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Right that caused gas shortages on the East Coade.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: Big time panic buying stations running out of fuel. The
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: pipeline supplies about forty five percent of the East Coast fuel.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: They shut it down voluntarily after the attack.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: How much was the ransom.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Relatively small compared to some others, about seventy five bitcoin
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: worth nearly five million dollars at the time. The dark
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: side group responsible actually issued a weird statement saying they
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: were apolitical and just wanted money, apologizing for the societal chaos.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: H huh, sorry, we shut down your fuel supply. Just
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: business very much.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: There was also Kasaia in July twenty twenty one. They're
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: an IT company that provides software to other IT service.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Providers, so hitting them hits their customers too. A supply
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: chain attack exactly.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: The Reval group exploited Kasia software to push ransomware out
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: to potentially fifteen hundred businesses worldwide that used CASIAS tools.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: Supermarkets in Sweden had to close. Schools in New Zealand
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: were affected a massive ripple effect. The demand from Reeval
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: was seventy million dollars for a universal.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Decryptor WOW and CNA Financial, an insurance.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Company, Yeah March twenty twenty one, they paid forty million
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: dollars after an attack encrypted fifteen thousand systems and stole
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: employee and customer data, including social security numbers. Paying forty
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: million dollars is ironic for an insurance company who often
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: advise clients not to pay.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: The irony is thick there. Okay, so how do these
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: cyber criminals actually operate? Now? It sounds like they've gotten
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: incredibly sophisticated.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: They really have. The initial entry point is often still
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: quite simple, a malicious email attachment, a link in a
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: phishing email that looks convincing, or maybe exploiting an unpatched
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: vulnerability and software facing the Internet.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: But it's evolved beyond just random emails.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: Right Massively, We've gone from small groups maybe blasting out
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: emails helping someone clicks, to highly organized professional gangs. They
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: operate like businesses. They steal logging credentials. Probe networks for weaknesses,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: constantly update their malware to avoid antivirus detection. It's an
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: arms race, it really is. And one of the biggest
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: developments is ransomware is a service.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Race, like software as a service, but for crime exactly.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Groups develop the ransomware tools and infrastructure, then they lease
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: it out or sell subscriptions to other criminals called affiliates.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: The affiliates carry out the attacks and the developers take
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: it cut of the profits, so it lowers.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: The bar for entry. You don't need to be a
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: master code or to launch a major attack precisely.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: Groups like revial, lock, bit, Hive, conte many operated on
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: this rays model, enabling a huge number of attacks globally.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: And they're not just encrypting files anymore. There's this leakwere
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: or do swear attack.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: That's a nasty evolution. It's called double extortion. First they
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: encrypt your files, then they also steal sensitive data before encrypting.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Their threat becomes pay us to get the decryption key
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: and pay us so we don't leak your confidential data
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: publicly online.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: So even if you have perfect backups, they can still
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: pressure you.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Your backups might save you from the encryption, but
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: the thread of having your customer data, financial records, intellectual
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: property dumped online is a huge motivator to pay. Some
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: groups even do triple extortion, adding a thread of DEDOS
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: attacks distributed denial of service to knock your website offline
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: if you don't pay.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: They just keep adding layers of pressure. And who are
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: they targeting now? Has that changed?
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Big shift? Pre twenty seventeen it was mostly individuals. Now
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: it's overwhelmingly businesses in large organizations. One stat suggested eighty
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: one percent of infections in twenty eighteen were enterprises.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Why the shift Bigger payouts?
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Bigger payouts definitely, but also targeting sectors that are most
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: vulnerable to downtime healthcare, finance, manufacturing, government, education, anywhere disruption
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: causes immediate, significant pain.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: And it's not just computers anymore. Phones, other devices.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Mobile ransomware is a thing, especially on Android. Often
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: uses scare tactics like fake police notices saying you've done
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: something illegal, demanding payment via things like iTunes gift cards.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: And we're starting to see threats against Internet of things
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: IoT devices too, smart home devices potentially, Yeah, anything connected.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: The tax surface just keeps.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Expanding, and tragically it's not just data or money anymore,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: been real human costs.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, that German hospital case in twenty twenty where a
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: patient died after having to be rerouted due to a
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: ransomware attack was a stark wake up call, and the
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: COVID nineteen pandemic definitely made things worse. Attackers exploited the
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: chaos and the rush to remote work, which often opened
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: up new security holes.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: This all leads to that incredibly difficult question for any victim,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: to pay or not to pay? It must be an
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: agonizing decision.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: Absolutely agonizing. You're balancing the immediate survival of your business,
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: maybe employee jobs, against the long term consequences and ethical considerations.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: What's the official advice law enforcement cybersecurity experts.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Almost universally, the advice is do not pay.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Why so emphatic.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: Several key reasons we'll get into, but that's the strong
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: recommendation from bodies like the FBI, CS Europol.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, But despite that advice, companies do pay, sometimes huge amounts,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: as we've seen. What are the arguments for paying? When
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: does it feel like the only option.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: The most common reason is simply desperation, You have no
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: viable alternative. If your critical data is logged, you don't
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: have good backups, or worse, your backups were also hit
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: by the ransomware.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Which they often target now.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, exactly. They specifically look for and try to
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: delete or encrypt backups. If that happens, Paying might seem
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: like the only way to potentially recover years of work,
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: critical operational data, customer records.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: So it's about business survival, cure and simple.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: Often yes, Minimizing downtime is another huge factor. Every hour,
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: every day your systems are down, costs money, potentially huge
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: amounts lost revenue, lost productivity, damage to your reputation, customer trust, eroding.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Paying quickly might seem like the fastest way to get
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: back online and stop the.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: Bleeding, even if it feels wrong.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: Even if it feels wrong, there's immense external pressure too,
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: especially for public companies, shareholders, customers, business partners. They all
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: want the problem fixed now. Investors might push for payment
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: just to stem the immediate financial losses. Thinking about the
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: quarterly report.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: And isn't cyber insurance a factor? Now? Doesn't that sometimes
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: cover ransom payments?
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: It does, and that's a major influence many cyber insurance
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: policies do cover random payments, often as part of the
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: incident response. If you know insurance will cover the bulk
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: of the ransom, it makes the decision to pay much
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: easier financially. Statistics show insured companies are significantly more.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Likely to pay okay, So powerful arguments for paying, rooted
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: in immediate survival, financial pressure and insurance coverage now flip side.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Why are the authorities so strongly against paying?
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: The number one reason is simple. Paying fuels the fire.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: It proves to the criminals that their business model works.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: It funds their operations, allows them to develop better tools,
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: hire more people, and launch more attacks against more victims.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: You're basically funding your future attackers.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Precisely, and the data backs this up. Studies shows something
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: like eighty percent of organizations that paid to ransom get
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: hit again, often by the same group, and of those
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: nearly half pay a second time, often a higher amount.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: You become a known paying.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Target, a repeat customer for cyber criminals. Grim what else?
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: Paying offers absolutely no guarantee you'll get your data back none.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: The criminals might just take the money and vanish their
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: decryption tool, might not work properly, or might corrupt data
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: or they might just give you back some of your.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Data, so you could pay millions and still be crippled.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Absolutely that sofo's report from twenty twenty three found ninety
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: two percent of companies that paid didn't get all their
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: data back. Nearly a third only recovered about half. It's
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: a huge gamble.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: What about demand escalation?
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: That happens too. If you show willingness to pay, they
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: might string you along increase the demands during negotiation. It
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: becomes a drawn out, costly.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Nightmare and insurance. You said it encourages payment, but can
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: paying also hurt your insurance?
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: It can. While policies might cover it, the insurer might
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: see the payment as a sign of poor security practices
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: or negligence on your part. This could lead to much
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: higher premiums in the future, or they might even refuse
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: to renew your policy.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: And finally, the legal side, can you actually get in
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: trouble for paying?
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Potentially yes, depending on who you pay. If the ransomware
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: group is linked to a sanctioned entity, a terrorist group,
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: a nation state under sanctions, paying them could violate laws
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: like anti money laundering regulations or sanctions regimes like OPHAK
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: in the US, you could face hefty fines or even
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: criminal charges. It could also be seen as obstructing a
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: law enforcement investigation.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Wow, okay, so a minefield of practical, ethical, and legal
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: reasons not to pay. How are governments trying to tackle
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: this beyond just advising against payment.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: There's definitely a push on the law enforcement side. International
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: cooperation has led to some major takedowns, disrupting the infrastructure
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: of groups like Lockbid, Black Cattle, phv C, REFV, seizing
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: their servers, sometimes recovering decryption keys. It's a constant battle,
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: but there have been successes.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: And some countries are looking at new laws right like
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Australia's mandatory report.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: That's a really interesting development. Starting May thirty, twenty twenty five,
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: businesses in Australia with over aud three million dollars in
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: turnover must report any ransomware or cyber extortion payment they
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: make within seventy two hours.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Seventy two hours, that's fast. What do they have to report?
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: A lot of detail? Business info, the impact of the incident,
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: the specific malware used, how the attackers got in, how
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: much was demanded, how much was paid, money or other benefits,
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: and even details of communications with the extortionists.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: What's the goal of collecking all that data.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: The government wants a clearer picture of the threat landscape,
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: who's being targeted, how what tactics are working. They can
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: use this intelligence to give better advice to businesses, especially
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: smaller ones, and potentially shape future laws or counter strategies.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Is the reported information protected. Companies might be hesitant to
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: share embarrassing details.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, there are legal protections. Generally, the information provided in
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: these mandatory reports can't be used against the company in
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: most legal proceedings unless they provide false information or obstruct
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: an investigation. They're trying to encourage honest.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Reporting and penalties if you don't report.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, a civil penalty applies for failing to report within
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: the seventy two hours. They're starting with an education first
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: approach for the first six months or so, then moving
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: to stricter enforcement in twenty twenty six.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: Are other countries doing similar things.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: The UK is actively considering it. They're talking about possibly
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: banning public sector bodies, schools, hospitals, counsels from paying ransoms altogether,
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: and potentially bringing in mandatory reporting for private companies too.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: Maybe in early twenty twenty five. There's also talk in
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: some places like Maryland in the US and Japan about
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: making the actual creation of ransomware illegal going after the developers.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: And arrests are happening.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's hard because these groups are often based in
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: jurisdictions that don't cooperate. But there have been successes like
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: a British student jailed for Revedent ransomware years ago, and
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: the FBI has indictments out for the creators of the
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: SamSam ransomware, even if they haven't been caught yet.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Okay. It all paints a picture of a massive, complex threat,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: which brings us to defence Part five, Fortifying your digital defenses.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: What can individuals and organizations actually do?
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: The absolute key takeaway from everything we've discussed is that
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: prevention and preparedness are paramount. Yeah, you have to assume
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: you could be a target no matter your size, and
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: you need defenses that go beyond just basic antivirus. You
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: need layers the last line of defense.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Let's get practical. What are the absolute essential mitigation strategies?
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: Number one backups, backups, backups, backups. It sounds basic, but
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: it's the most critical defense against the encryption part of ransomware.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: But not just any backups right the attackers.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: Target them exactly. You need robust backups. That means, following
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: the three two one rule, at least three copies of
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: your data on two different types of media, with one
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: copy stored completely offline or off.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Site, offline meeting, physically disconnected.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, external hard drives unplugged from the network, tape stored securely,
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: or cloud backups that are immutable, meaning they can't be
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: altered or deleted for a set period, even by an
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: administrator account that might get compromised. Using a pen to
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: only permissions on network storage can also help prevent ransomware
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: from overwriting.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Good backups Okay, secure isolated backups critical. What's next?
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: Keep everything updated, prompt security patches. So many major ransomware
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: attacks like wanta Try exploited known vulnerabilities for which patches
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: were already available. Install updates for your operating system, your browser,
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: your applications, everything as soon as possible.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: Don't click remind me tomorrow on updates.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: Please don't. And then there's basic cyber hygiene and user education.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: This is huge, training people not to click on bad links.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: Essentially, yes, be incredibly suspicious of unsolicited email attachments or links,
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: even if they look like they're from someone you know.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: Use strong unique passwords, enable multi factor authentication wherever possible.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: Train employees regularly make security awareness part of the.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: Culture, and if someone does suspect an infection.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: Disconnect, immediately pull the network cable, turn off Wi fi
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: isolate that machine from the rest of the network as
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: quickly as possible to stop the ransomware potentially spreading laterally.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: Network segmentation is also.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: Key here, breaking the network into smaller zones exactly.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: So if one part gets infected, the ransomware can't easily
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: jump to critical servers or backup systems in another zone.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: Contain the blast radius. Following guidance from agencies like CISA
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: in the US is always a good idea too, They
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: have detailed best practices.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: These are great foundational steps. Are there more advanced technical defenses?
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: Yes. For very high security needs, worm storage write once
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: read many is an option, think like old school CDRs
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: or dvdrs, but more modern versions. Once data is written,
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: it cannot be changed or deleted, making it immune to ransomware.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: Encryption practicality is limited for constantly changing data, but for
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: archives it's very secure. What about file system features filesystem
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: snapshots are powerful. Windows has Volume shadow Copy VIAS, which
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: takes point in time copies, but ransomware knows about VSS
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: and tries to delete these shadow copies using a tool
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: called vssadmin dot ex.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: So what can you do?
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: You can restrict user access to vsadmin dot ex to
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: make it harder for malware to delete those snapshots. Also,
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: Windows Defender has a future called controlled folder Access, where
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: you can designate specific folders like your documents or backup
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: locations that only explicitly authorized applications are allowed to modify.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: That sounds useful, and you mentioned ZFS earlier.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: ZFS is a really robust file system often used in
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: servers and NAS devices. If the ransomware doesn't gain root
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: administrator privileges, ZFS is highly resistant. It allows for frequent
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: immutable snapshots, read only copies of the filesystem state. If
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: you get hit, you can often just roll back to
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: a clean snapshot from minutes or hours before the infection,
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: losing very little data and without needing traditional backups.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: So ZFS snapshots are like a built in time machine
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: for your data.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: A very resilient one. Yes, it's a strong defense layer.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, lots of defensive strategies. But let's say the worst
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: happens your hit, what are the real chances of decrypting
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: your files without paying?
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: Honestly, the chances are generally slim. For modern ransomware variants.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: The encryption they use is usually very strong, like AES
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: or RSA with long keys. Breaking it through brute force
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: is typically impossible with current technology.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: So those free decryption tools you sometimes hear about.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: They exist, often thanks to law enforcement seizing servers or
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: researchers finding flaws in specific ransomware versions. The No More
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: Ransom Project, a collaboration between Europol, Kospersky, McAfee and others,
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: is the best place to check. They have a tool
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: called crypto Sheriff where you can upload an encrypted file
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: and it tries to identify the ransomware and see if
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: a known decryptor exists.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: So worth a try, but don't count on it exactly.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: It works for some older or slot strains, but most
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: modern professionally coded ransomware can't be decrypted that way. Sometimes
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: forensic techniques might recover old deleted versions of files from
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: the hard drive, but that's not guaranteed either.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: And we have to mention the really shady side of this,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: those recovery firms that might just be paying the ransom
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: behind your back.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's a deeply concerning finding. Investigations like one by
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: pro Publica uncovered evidence that some firms advertising ransom free
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: data recovery were essentially acting as intermediaries. They'd negotiate and
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: pay the ransom to the criminals themselves, get the decryption key,
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: and then charge the victim a hefty premium for the
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: recovery service without disclosing they'd paid the attackers.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: So the victim thinks they avoided paying a ransom, but
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: they actually paid it plus.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: A markup exactly. And sometimes the actors themselves would even
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: recommend these specific recovery firms to victims who are having
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: trouble making the bitcoin payment. It creates this whole murky
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: ecosystem around ransomware payments. Extreme caution and due diligence are
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: needed if you engage any third party recovery service.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: What a complex, evolving, and frankly scary world we've explored today.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: It really is. We've got from actual kings held for
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: silver and gold on medieval battlefields.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: To modern tycoons held in secret locations for millions, all
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: the way.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: To invisible adversaries holding critical data hostage for billions in cryptocurrency.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: On beyond infographics. Today we've seen the definition of ransom
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: itself more dramatically. But those core human drivers.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: Greed, fear, power, desperation, they seem pretty constant, don't they.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: The desire to get back what's been taken, whether it's
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: a person or precious data.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: It really underscores that. Whether you're talking about protecting a
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: monarch centuries ago, or securing a multinational corporations network today,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: or even just safeguarding your own personal photos and files.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: Understanding these threats, knowing the history and critically building smart
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: layered defenses isn't just optional anymore. It feels essential.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: It makes you wonder. In our age, where information is
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: everywhere and everything is connected, maybe the ultimate king's ransom
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: isn't measured in gold or bitcoin anymore. We mean, maybe
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: it's the intangible stuff, our privacy, our security, our collective
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: peace of mind. Knowing our digital lives and critical systems
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: are safe. That feels priceless.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: It's a powerful thought. What price are we willing to pay?
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: Not in ransom, but an effort and investment to protect that.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: And what steps are you listening right now willing to
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: take proactively to make sure that prices never demand of
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: you in the first place.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: Something to think about, definitely, And if this deep dive
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: on beyond infographics gave you some valuable insights or sparks
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: your curiosity, please do consider leaving us that five star
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: rating and.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Share us with a friend. Your support really does help
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: us keep bringing these explorations to more curious minds. Thanks
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: for joining us.