Shannon Togawa Mercer on Negotiating with the Bad Guys
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 29 March 2024
⏱️ 53 minutes
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Summary
Shannon Togawa Mercer served as Lawfare's Managing Editor and then went on to quite a career shift. She now negotiates with ransomware bad actors. She is a cybersecurity and privacy lawyer at WilmerHale and has developed a specialized practice in responding to cybersecurity incidents, many of them involving foreign malware gangs.
She joined Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to talk about this odd area of legal practice. Why do you need a big law firm when your computer files are suddenly frozen? Is it legal to negotiate with and pay off foreign ransomware gangs? How do you do the negotiations anyway? Do they cut you a deal if you're polite? And what is it like to be recruited by the malware gangs that you are negotiating with?
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Transcript
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| 0:27.0 | The future is unpredictable at times that the Open University are the experts in |
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| 0:55.0 | The open university, the open university, the future is open. are moving quickly. I've gotten some ransomware notes that just have a long |
| 1:13.7 | runway so they allow you a few days to think about things. I've had some that have |
| 1:19.3 | given you know a day maybe less with threats on the back end. |
| 1:23.9 | So if you do not respond within a day, |
| 1:27.0 | we'll start calling up your family members. |
| 1:28.8 | So that happens. |
| 1:30.4 | We will text your wife. Stuff like that that gets really personal and increases the pressure |
| 1:37.2 | I'm Benjamin Wittis and this is the law fair podcast March 29, 2024. |
| 1:44.4 | Shannon Tagawa Mercer served as law fair's managing editor |
| 1:48.8 | and then went on to quite a career shift. |
| 1:52.1 | She now negotiates with ransomware malactors. |
| 1:58.0 | She is a cybersecurity and privacy lawyer |
| 2:01.0 | at Wilmer Hale and has developed a specialized practice in responding to |
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