Some of the world's top tech firms are backing a new industry task force focused on disrupting cybercriminal ransomware gangs by limiting their ability to get paid, and targeting the individuals and finances of the organized thieves behind these crimes.
Take aim at lifeblood of operators.
US government and industry officials confronting an epidemic of ransomware, where hackers freeze the computers of a target and demand a payoff, are zeroing in on cryptocurrency regulation as the key to combating the scourge, sources familiar with the work of a public-private task force said.
In a report on Thursday, the panel of experts is expected to call for far more aggressive tracking of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
While those have won greater acceptance among investors over the past year, they remain the lifeblood of ransomware operators and other criminals who face little risk of prosecution in much of the world.
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Ransomware attacks launched by cybercriminal mafias in foreign safe havens
A new report by a public-private task force including Microsoft, Amazon, the National Governors Association, the FBI and Britain’s and Canada’s elite crime agencies offers a comprehensive plan for assaulting ransomware
By FRANK BAJAKAP Technology Writer
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BOSTON Political hand-wringing in Washington over Russia’s hacking of federal agencies and interference in U.S. politics has mostly overshadowed a worsening digital scourge with a far broader wallop: crippling and dispiriting extortionary ransomware attacks by cybercriminal mafias that mostly operate in foreign safe havens out of the reach of Western law enforcement.
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A coalition of government agencies and security firms has released a framework for how to disrupt ransomware attacks that calls for expanded regulation of the global cryptocurrency market to better track the virtual coins paid to cybercriminals during extortion schemes.
On Thursday, the Institute for Security and Technology s Ransomware Task Force published the framework, which features 48 proposals. It calls for a coordinated, international diplomatic and law enforcement effort to combat these cyberthreats - for example, by discouraging nation-states from harboring cybercriminals and their operations.
The group also encourages the White House to take the lead on addressing ransomware by creating a group that includes representatives of the National Security Council, the office of the National Cyber Director, and security companies to coordinate the effort.