U.S Government To Assemble 30 Countries In New Crack Down On Ransomware

The United States government will this month lead a congregation of 30 countries to gear up efforts to resolve the devastating effects of ransomware to economic and national security, a move that is expected to synergize global nations fight against the spyware.

The United States President, Joe Biden told CNN that it is part of his administration’s efforts to combat cybercrime and other illegal actions on the web.

In his words:

White House will convene a 30-country meeting this month to try to ramp up global efforts to address the threat of ransomware to economic and national security, President Joe Biden said in a statement shared exclusively with CNN.

“Cyber threats affect the lives and livelihoods of American families and businesses,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement to CNN. Sullivan said the administration would “continue to build on our whole-of-government effort to deter and disrupt cyberattacks.”

The mandate of the alliance will be “to accelerate our cooperation in combatting cybercrime, improving law enforcement collaboration, stemming the illicit use of cryptocurrency, and engaging on these issues diplomatically,” Biden is set to announce Friday, according to the statement.

Biden’s announcement is coming at a time ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure firms in the U.S. are at an all time high. One of such is the attack that forced a major US fuel supplier, ‘Colonial Pipeline’ to close operations for days.

The announcement follows a series of ransomware attacks on US critical infrastructure firms in recent months, including one that forced major US fuel supplier Colonial Pipeline to shut down for days.

The Moscow Scepticism

According to the White House, the maiden multilateral initiative to be held virtually is part of its efforts to cut off revenue for ransomware groups, while looking at ways they can be brought to face the full wrath of the law with diligent prosecution.

Why we strengthen US cybersecurity, “the Federal government needs the partnership of every American and every American company in these efforts,” Biden added.

It would be recalled that President Biden had in June called on his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin to go hard on Cybercriminals operating from Russian soil but there is a feeling of distrust by US authorities against the Russian Government over the latter’s alleged laxity to keep the fight against the hackers.

The hackers, after taking a brief hiatus after the meeting between Biden and Putin had then struck again, this tome targeting multiple US. firms.

One of such attacks had ‘New Cooperative’ a grain  cooperative with at least 60 location in Iowa becoming the victim of the attack, as it has to take off its computer systems September after Russian-speaking hackers encrypted them. Although the cooperative said it successfully contained the intrusion, the magnitude of the attack shows that the war against ransomware is far from over.

Authorities in the U.S have continuously fashioned  out ways to reduce the impact of the hackers that do not rely on the Russian government’s cooperation with the US treasury department having to impose sanctions in September against a cryptocurrency exchange officials in U.S allege have being making transactions with hackers who have known to be behind eight types of ransomware.