The FBI and Justice Department upped the ante on the rhetoric around ransomware attacks on Thursday and Friday, telling a number of news outlets that cyberattacks will be treated with almost the same level of concern as terrorist attacks.
Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, compared the government's fight against ransomware to the situation the country faced after 9/11[1] in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. He added that the FBI has identified nearly 100 different types of ransomware, each of which has already been implicated in attacks.
He also took direct aim at the Russian government, singling them out for harboring many of those behind the different brands of ransomware. But he also revealed that the FBI has had limited success working with some private sector cybersecurity officials in obtaining encryption keys without paying any ransoms.
The comments came after three significant developments in the government's response to the recent wave of ransomware attacks on companies in critical industries like Colonial Pipeline[2] and global meat processor JBS[3].
Anne Neuberger, deputy assistant to the President and deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology, sent a letter to private sector leaders[4] on Thursday urging them to prepare for potential attacks and implement a number of security measures to prevent an incident.
Senior Justice Department officials then told Reuters that memos had been sent out to all US Attorney's Offices explaining that ransomware attacks would be investigated in a manner similar to incidents of terrorism[5].
Technology journalist Kim Zetter shared a snippet[6] of a memo sent by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco that said urgent reports should be filed whenever a US Attorney's Office learns about a new ransomware attack.