Anja Shortland - Inside the Dark Economy of Hacking and Ransomware

In this guided tour of the digital underworld, cybercriminals and intelligence agencies, tech firms and hackers in childhood bedrooms wage shadowy battles with existential stakes for us all. Based on the 2026 book "We Know You Can Pay A Million", the talk charts the rise of ransomware from pranksters tinkering with phone lines to cybercriminal gangs capable of taking down whole societies. The focus is on the human stories behind the malware and the grey ecosystem in which it thrives. We look at ransomware from all sides: how does ransomware look from the perspectives of the various criminals, legal and grey businesses that produce, facilitate, fight or aim to reduce the impact of ransomware on victims? Whether it's cynical hackers seeking to maximise profits or desperate security technicians trying to get overwhelmed victims back online: this is a nail-biting true-crime account of how ransomware rose from a mere curiosity to a national security threat. The talk will engage average computer users with cybersecurity without the use of technical jargon. Participants will gain actionable insights into reducing their own and our collective vulnerability to this billion-dollar criminal extortion business.

About Anja:

Anja is a Professor of Political Economy at King's College, London, where she specialises in the economics of crime. Anja studies private governance in the world’s trickiest markets: hostages, fine art, antiquities, and ransomware. She is fascinated by the grey ecosystems that bridge the divide between legal firms or families and the criminal underworld to facilitate the safe recovery of stolen treasures and the role of insurers in ordering such transactions.

Anja was an Engineering and Economics undergraduate at Oxford and then did her Masters and PhD in International Relations at the LSE. Before coming to King's she worked as a lecturer in Economics at Leicester, a Reader in Economics at Brunel University and as a consultant to the World Bank.

Her latest book We Know You Can Pay A Million: Inside the Dark Economy of Hacking and Ransomware was published by Profile in April 2026.

Info: Please ensure you arrive no later than 18:25 as latecomers may not be admitted once the event has commenced.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Library of Mistakes, 33A Melville Street Lane, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

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