Tighter regulation of the cryptocurrency sector and reporting of all extortion payments are two top recommendations from a new sobering and sweeping report aimed at reducing ransomware attacks. The report, released shortly before the recent Colonial Pipeline incident, was written by a 60-person panel comprised of representatives of U.S. and U.K. government agencies, think tanks and multiple industries. One of the task force’s three co-chairs, Resilience Insurance chief claims director Michael Phillips, gave the Cybersecurity Law Report an inside account of the task force’s discussions and explained its recommendations. In part one of the interview, he discusses steps to disrupt the cryptocurrency system that enables ransom payments and the need for insurers to help the government. In part two, he discusses mandated reporting of ransomware payments and requiring cloud and managed service providers to meet higher cybersecurity standards. See “Virtual Currencies: Opening a New Avenue for Financial Crimes” (Mar. 17, 2021).