Russia and China were not invited to Biden’s government-organized anti-ransomware meetings, attended by high-ranking government officials and ministers from more than 30 countries, to join forces against ransomware groups targeting organizations around the world.
A senior administration official told reporters: “We’ve worked with allies and partners to hold nation-states accountable for malicious cyberactivity as evidenced by, really, the broadest international support we had ever in our attributions for Russia and China’s malicious cyber activities in the last few months. The Experts Group continues to meet to address the ransomware threat and to press Russia to act against criminal ransomware activities emanating from its territory. In this first round of discussions, we did not invite the Russians to participate for a host of reasons, including various constraints.”
While the areas that will be addressed during this week’s meeting will include national resilience, countering illegal financing, disruption, and diplomacy, the Biden administration’s efforts to combat ransomware will focus on four different approaches.
These include disrupting the ransomware infrastructure and actors, strengthening the resilience against ransomware attacks, combating the misuse of virtual currencies for money laundering and finally the use of international cooperation to disrupt the ransomware ecosystem and at the same time tackle safe harbors for ransomware criminals.