Review - S 2943 Introduced - Ransom Disclosure

Earlier this month, Sen Warren (D,MA) introduced S 2943, the Ransom Disclosure Act. This is very similar to S 2926 which Warren introduced two days earlier. As with the very slightly earlier bill, S 2943 would require covered individuals to report ransomware payments to DHS and require DHS to publish an annual report to Congress about such ransomware reporting.

Warren is not a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to which this bill was referred. This means that there is probably insufficient influence to see this bill considered in Committee. I suspect that there would be little support for this bill in that Committee. I would not be surprised to see this bill included as a potential amendment to a larger authorization bill on the floor of the Senate.

I would like to note that I pointed out each of the three major problems corrected in this version of the bill in my post about S 2926. I cannot, however, claim to have influenced Warren’s staff to make these changes; S 2943 was introduced 5-days before I wrote my ‘influential’ post. Besides, they did not correct the most important problem, the huge definitional loophole.

For more details about the differences between the two bills, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-2943-introduced - subscription required.