Reimagining Cyber - real world perspectives on cybersecurity
Sep 23, 2026 · 18 min · 11 segments
In this episode of Reimagining Cyber, Keelin Conant welcomes Kurtis Minder, author of Cyber Recon, former founder of GroupSense, and one of the industry's most experienced ransomware negotiators…
Kurtis MinderGuest
Keelin ConantHost
So with that said, without giving away any confidential details, what's one lesson you've learned from a ransomware negotiation that every business leader should hear?
The, the most mistakes I see made, and I've, I've been pulled into court because of these [laughs] mistakes, is usually around communication.
... what you tell the media, and what you tell your staff, and when it's appropriate to share things and when it's not, v- extremely difficult.
And all of those things need to be ironed out in the planning phase so that when it's happening, nobody's, you know, making a rash decision about who to tell what.
When the media's standing in the parking lot and cornering people as they're leaving the office about what's going on, everybody should know what the playbook is.
so most of the, most of the damage, sort of the collateral damage that I've seen if, have come out of these cases are typically around the communication during the incident.
If you can imagine, I like to say this, I s- I think I say something like this in the book where I say, like, at the end of these cases ...
Like, eventually this is gonna s- be solved one way or the other, and when the dust settles, you're gonna need a tremendous amount of goodwill from your community.
And the quickest way to squander that goodwill is to make them think you deceived or lied to them during the incident.
So with that said, without giving away any confidential details, what's one lesson you've learned from a ransomware negotiation that every business leader should hear?
The, the most mistakes I see made, and I've, I've been pulled into court because of these [laughs] mistakes, is usually around communication.
... what you tell the media, and what you tell your staff, and when it's appropriate to share things and when it's not, v- extremely difficult.
And all of those things need to be ironed out in the planning phase so that when it's happening, nobody's, you know, making a rash decision about who to tell what.
When the media's standing in the parking lot and cornering people as they're leaving the office about what's going on, everybody should know what the playbook is.
so most of the, most of the damage, sort of the collateral damage that I've seen if, have come out of these cases are typically around the communication during the incident.
If you can imagine, I like to say this, I s- I think I say something like this in the book where I say, like, at the end of these cases ...
Like, eventually this is gonna s- be solved one way or the other, and when the dust settles, you're gonna need a tremendous amount of goodwill from your community.
And the quickest way to squander that goodwill is to make them think you deceived or lied to them during the incident.
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