Uptick in ransomware attacks shares ‘a lot of parallels’ with 9/11: Wray

The uptick in cyberattacks against some of the United States’s largest industries shares “a lot of parallels” with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, said FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Agents are investigating more than 100 types of ransomware, much of which originated from criminal enterprises in Russia, Wray said. Most recently, alleged Russian criminals hacked JBS, the country’s largest meat producer, and halted slaughter, though the company was able to resume operations Wednesday.

Each of the styles of ransomware affected between a dozen and 100 targets as hacking complaints from private businesses more than tripled in the past year, Wray told the Wall Street Journal.

“There are a lot of parallels, there’s a lot of importance, and a lot of focus by us on disruption and prevention,” Wray said of the similarities to 9/11. ”There’s a shared responsibility, not just across government agencies but across the private sector and even the average American.”

“The scale of this problem is one that I think the country has to come to terms with,” he added.

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TO APPROACH RANSOMWARE ATTACKS THE SAME WAY HANDLES TERRORISM

U.S. supply chain vulnerabilities were exposed when the Colonial Pipeline was forced to halt production following a cyberattack from the Russian criminal group DarkSide. Executives eventually freed up their systems when they gave in to a nearly $5 million ransom, though the incident roiled the gas supply down the East Coast, causing shortages and panic.

“Now realizing it can affect them when they’re buying gas at the pump or buying a hamburger — I think there’s a growing awareness now of just how much we’re all in this fight together,” Wray said.

Much of the online threat stems from Russia, Wray said, suggesting the Kremlin should do more to crack down on criminal groups and protect U.S. assets.

“Time and time again, a huge portion of those traced back to actors in Russia. And so, if the Russian government wants to show that it’s serious about this issue, there’s a lot of room for them to demonstrate some real progress that we’re not seeing right now,” he said.

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President Joe Biden on May 12 ordered an overhaul of federal software systems and the contractors that supply them. He called for increased cooperation between the federal government and the private sector to combat the attacks in a “fundamental shift” in the administration’s security “mindset.”

“Today’s executive order makes a down payment toward modernizing our cyberdefenses and safeguarding many of the services on which we rely,” a senior administration official told reporters on a call, saying the White House had been working on the order since week two of Biden’s term. “It reflects a fundamental shift in our mindset from incident response to prevention, from talking about security to doing security.”

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