The US military sees itself increasingly responsible for the fight against ransomware groups. The action against the well-known REvil group is therefore not an isolated case, as a current report in the US daily New York Times shows.
Until about nine months ago, containment of ransomware attacks was seen primarily as a job for law enforcement, Paul M. Nakasone, head of US cyber command and director of the National Security Agency (NSA), told the newspaper. In the meantime, however, there have been attacks on pipeline operators and food companies, which is viewed as an attack on critical infrastructures. Accordingly, other government agencies are now also involved in the matter.
The main thing here is still to gain a deeper understanding on the part of the authorities of how the ransomware groups work. “The first thing we have to do is understand our opponents better than we ever understood them before,” said Nakasone. The US government has initiated various measures for this purpose and has also made corresponding budgets available.
The shift in responsibilities also goes back to a presidential decree signed by Joe Biden in May. It made it clear that the attack on the Colonial Pipeline in particular, which stalled fuel supplies on the east coast of the USA, made it clear that more must be done to protect critical infrastructures. In the course of this, companies in the area have already been obliged to report more serious attacks to the security authorities within three days at the latest.
The military also recently had some success. Due to the increasing pressure caused by the activities of the US Cyber Command, the notorious REvil group is said to have finally withdrawn. This was responsible for a whole series of sophisticated ransomware attacks and was ultimately targeted by military hackers who took over at least one central system.
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