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The Biden administration will offer rewards of up to $ 10 million for intelligence identifying malicious foreign state-sanctioned cyber activity against critical US infrastructure – including ransomware attacks – and the White House has launched a task force to coordinate efforts to stem the scourge of ransomware. .
It is also launching the stopransomware.gov website to provide public resources to counter the threat and build resilient networks, a senior administration official told reporters.
Another measure announced Thursday to tackle the ransomware attack comes from the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. It will engage banks, tech companies and others in better anti-money laundering efforts for cryptocurrency and faster tracing of ransomware proceeds, which are paid for in virtual currency.
Officials hope to seize more extortion payments in ransomware cases, as the FBI did by recovering most of the $ 4.4 million in ransom paid by Colonial Pipeline in May.
More details on the new measures were expected later Thursday.
The administration official declined to comment on whether the US government played a role in the online disappearance on Tuesday of REvil, the Russian-linked gang responsible for a supply chain ransomware attack on 2 July that crippled more than 1,000 organizations worldwide by targeting Florida-based software provider Kaseya. . Ransomware scrambles entire networks of data, which criminals unlock when paid.
Cyber security experts say REvil may have decided to go out of business and change its name to a new name, as it and several other ransomware gangs have done in the past in an attempt to destabilize law enforcement.
Another possibility is that Russian President Vladimir Putin has in fact heeded President Joe Biden’s warning about the repercussions if he did not control ransomware criminals, who enjoy safe haven in Russia and allied states.
This seemed unlikely, however, given Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov’s statement to reporters on Wednesday that he was unaware of the disappearance of the REvil sites.
“I don’t know which group went where,” he said. He said the Kremlin found cybercrimes “unacceptable” and deserved to be punished, but analysts say they have seen no evidence of a Putin crackdown.
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