The Biden administration intends to curb the use of cryptocurrencies by ransomware operators by tracing the ransoms paid by victims. This, Bloomberg Bloomberg reports, citing its own sources.
According to the report, during a virtual briefing with members of Congress, Deputy National Security Advisor Anne Neuberger said the White House had created a ransomware task force.
The administration’s strategy to counter the attacks is to prevent hackers from profiting from digital assets. The new body will also work with authorities in other countries to prevent criminals from evading law enforcement.
Neuberger noted that there is no cybersecurity standard for private-sector entities in the United States, and Congress should enact such norms.
Bloomberg reports that not all briefing participants were impressed by the goals of the new task force. One lawmaker argued that the government body should lead a counteroffensive against the extortionists, while the discussion focused on defense.
The congressman couldn’t recall a single mention at the briefing of the hacker group behind the ransomware REvil, whose sites on July 13 suddenly went offline.
This followed a recent conversation between the U.S. and Russian presidents. In it, Joe Biden urged Vladimir Putin to curb ransomware attacks on American companies carried out from Russian territory. Later, Biden replied in the affirmative when asked about the possibility of disconnecting hacker servers by the United States.
In May, the world’s largest American meatpacking company JBS became a victim of REvil. It paid a ransom of $11 million in Bitcoin.
Colonial Pipeline, which fuels around 45% of the population on the East Coast of the United States, paid the hackers about $5 million in cryptocurrency. The FBI recovered most of the ransom.
In early July, as a result of a ransomware attack on the American software developer Kaseya, thousands of companies were affected, and the attackers demanded $70 million in Bitcoin.
Earlier, Biden ordered the study of tracking cryptocurrency transactions as one of the possible options to fight ransomware.
Subsequently, media reported that investigations into ransomware attacks in the United States had gained the same level of priority as terrorism.
According to Ransomwhere, addresses received more than $33 million in cryptocurrency in 2021 linked to ransomware operators.
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