Officials: Combating ransomware requires intensified crackdowns

More aggressive offensive measures were emphasized by officials to be crucial in foiling increasingly prevalent post-takedown recovery efforts by ransomware operations ahead of this week's International Counter Ransomware Initiative meeting, reports CyberScoop.

With ransomware gangs unlikely to be permanently dismantled by a single law enforcement operation amid the continued flow of ransom payments, "we have to increase the frequency and increase the breadth of these operations, by taking down infrastructure regularly, designating the exchanges that are facilitating money laundering and ransomware activity regularly," said Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology Anne Neuberger. Disruption efforts were also noted by Office of the Director of National Intelligence Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center Director Laura Galante as valuable in weakening ransomware groups despite using more decentralized attack models. Mounting cyber threats have prompted the U.S.-led CRI, which now has 68 members, to consider a U.S. Agency for International Development-headed counter-ransomware fund, a Canadian private sector panel for information sharing, and recommendations for ransomware victims.