According to White House officials, bitcoin – though it has its benefits – has increased ransomware cases across the country.
The White House Isn’t Confident in BTC
A White House spokesperson (who remains anonymous) recently commented in an interview:
When bitcoin became more widely used, we saw a huge jump in ransomware because it was a way to move money across borders. It’s a borderless threat, and we [need] to tackle it in a borderless way. The threat has clearly evolved.
The government house is now coordinating with approximately 36 countries at the time of writing to establish a new bitcoin ransomware-fighting program that will ensure issues like this become a thing of the past. The spokesperson said:
As we know, ransomware is an issue that knows no borders and affects each of the Counter Ransomware Initiative countries — our businesses, our critical infrastructure, and our citizens — and it’s only getting more challenging.
Crypto has been at the forefront of American politics over the past several months. Things began in such a manner when Biden issued a new crypto executive order requiring all financial agencies in the nation to explore digital currencies to better understand their benefits and disadvantages. The order also opened the door to a digital dollar. The Treasury has been researching crypto hard since then, though no official reports about what the White House is planning to do beyond this point have been issued.
The organization involving the 36 nations has come to be known as the Counter Ransomware Initiative (CRI), and it was formed during a virtual global summit designed to halt ransomware permanently. The group will also work with as many as 13 businesses in the private sector to see what information they can pass along about how to fight the growing threat.
The White House spokesperson said:
This is just a first round of getting companies’ perspectives to ensure that we’re not doing this the traditional government way, which is government-to-government only. We’re pulling in the private sector because of their unique visibility, capability, and insights into it.
Erich Kron – a security awareness advocate at KnowBe4 – offered his two cents, saying:
Ransomware has become a serious issue on a global scale, so it is no surprise that so many nations continue to band together to deal with the threat… The urgency to find a solution for the problem is only heightened.
Trying to Push Back
Jeff Williams – co-founder and CTO of Contrast Security – mentioned:
Additionally, we must push back on the industry when it attempts to obfuscate visibility into weak security practices and technologies with claims that it will compromise intellectual property (it won’t) or make it easier for attackers (it doesn’t). We need far more insight into how the software we trust with the most important things in our lives has been secured.
