So, President Biden mentions to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin that ransomware attacks are originating from Russyan soil. No comment from the dictator for life. Mr. Biden says that he expects the Russyan leader to take responsible action against these homegrown cyber-criminals. No comment from the dictator for life, leader of the largest country in the world.
So, what to do? President Biden finally told Mr. Putin that without any action to stop the attacks, the U.S. would now consider ransom ware attacks as a national security matter. No longer would they be criminal acts alone, but now they would be considered a national threat. These threats would then be followed by a comparable attack from the US CyberSecurity Command, the military arm of the US that is in charge of cybersecurity.
The US has experienced attacks that caused the shutdown of a gasoline pipeline in the North East. This forced locals to have their activities curtailed because they could not fill up the gas tank. Prices went up. People started hoarding. Businesses could not acquire expected deliveries of goods. A ransom was paid in Bitcoin. The FBI was brought in and was able to retrieve some of the ransom, but not all. REvil is only one of many Russyan operators of ransom attacks. It's becoming the nation's go -to sporting activity. Since they can't field a decent football team, they have moved into other competitions, where nefarious actors can compete without breaking a sweat. Most Russyans only sweat vodka, so sitting at a laptop makes good sense.
Is this the beginning of a new Cold War? Well, some military types say it's been going on for sometime, and now it has become public as actors have raised the ante. Don't open that email- it could be REvil.
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