Ian A. Stewart

Ian Stewart (Partner—Los Angeles, CA) was quoted in “Ransomware Attacks Up, But Victims Not Reporting to Police,” an article appearing in the February 12, 2021 issue of Digital Privacy News. The article discusses the increase in these insidious attacks, accelerated by the sudden prevalence of work-from-home arrangements. Bad actors have wasted no time exploiting the vulnerabilities caused by remote networks. Upon learning they’ve been hacked, many individuals and organizations are paying demanded ransom amounts – often more than once. Indeed, the amount of such cryptocurrency payments has risen three-fold since 2019.  A surprising number of victims choose to let cyberattacks go unreported rather than risk reprisals, reputational damage or the burden of rebuilding networks. 

Stewart, co-chair of Wilson Elser’s National Security and Data Privacy practice, says, “Most clients continue to see reporting to law enforcement as something to be avoided – believing that it will cause bad publicity, unwelcome scrutiny by regulators and time-consuming and expensive follow-up work that may rise to potential litigation.” 

The article goes on to make the case that the best offense for companies against ransomware attacks is a good defense.

Read the Article.