In the last few weeks, it has felt like the world of cybersecurity has been inundated with hopeful stories of successful international anti-ransomware initiatives – from the FBI’s attack on REvil to Europol’s arrest of key cybercriminals.

The US has announced that it will work with Israel in new anti-ransomware efforts, perhaps marking a real turn in the way we address ransomware as a geopolitical issue. So, will governments and intelligence agencies save us all?

Brian Knudtson, director of Cloud Market Intelligence for iland, believes that these initiatives may be coming too late and that individual businesses mustn’t get complacent about their cybersecurity. “Ransomware is a problem without borders, so it only makes sense that multi-national efforts have had the most success with stopping the groups most responsible. Unfortunately, this is a highly reactive approach to an already large problem and one that seems entirely possible to become a hydra – breaking up one large group, which may re-form into multiple smaller groups.”

While nations are starting to consider mandated collective action to reduce the profitability of ransomware, he adds, “it is still critical for individual companies to continue to protect themselves by having good defences, detection and recovery plans”.