
The Lawfare Podcast Lawfare Daily: The Shadowy World of Ransomware with Professor Anja Shortland
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Apr 28, 2026 Anja Shortland, a political economy professor at King’s College London who studies the economics of crime, discusses the rise of ransomware and its $75 billion global toll. She traces technical breakthroughs, the shift to human-operated attacks and Ransomware-as-a-Service, and recounts high-profile hacks and law enforcement responses. The conversation highlights how organizations and governments have adapted to this shadowy threat.
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Ransomware As Extortion Market
- Ransomware evolved from extortion patterns seen in piracy and kidnapping to a governed criminal market.
- Anja Shortland frames ransomware as the third leg of her extortion trilogy, focusing on transactions and trust between criminals and victims.
Huge Economic Damage Far Exceeds Ransom Payments
- Global economic cost of ransomware is huge at about $75 billion annually but criminals only received ~$900 million.
- Most costs are regulatory fines, litigation, and remediation rather than ransom payouts.
Three Technical Breakthroughs That Enabled Ransomware
- Three technical breakthroughs made modern ransomware possible: asymmetric encryption, anonymized communications, and cryptocurrencies.
- These converged around 2013, enabling unique keys, darknet chats, and pseudonymous payments.




