By Catherine Powell
As scary as having hackers demand you pay a cyber ransom or have your data destroyed, what's even scarier is the act of paying up could put you in Dutch with federal law. As of October 2020, the US Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) made it illegal to pay hackers a ransom. That's right, if you're found in violation of either the Trading With the Enemy Act or the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, you could face stiff penalties including fines and/or jail. What's even more alarming is that the very banks you do business with are required to file a Suspicious Activity Report should an individual or company be suspected of attempting to move funds of $5,000 or more that could be potentially used to pay hackers a ransom.
