In response to the ransomware attack against JBS USA Holdings that briefly disrupted some of the company’s Australian and American operations, JBS paid the hackers $11 million—more than twice that paid by Colonial Pipeline in its cowardly reward to its attackers.

JBS paid those $11 million dollars in its own craven reward for its own privilege of having been hacked.

In many—most?—milieus, aiding and abetting a criminal in the performance of the criminal’s activities is a felony.

It needs to be one here, too. Rather than compensating ransomware hackers—which compensation is directly, if not solely, responsible for the current sharp rise in ransomware attacks—these criminals need a different sort of reward, one that withdraws current criminals from the board and that discourages others from deciding to play.