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| A former cyber official calls on the army to attack hackers |
The former head of US government cybersecurity has called on the military to take action against organized crime groups that have launched ransom attacks on businesses and the government.
Chris Krebs, former director of the US Agency for Cyber and Infrastructure Security, told the Financial Times that the country should act more aggressively against ransomware hackers by encrypting data systems and asking for costs to unblock them.
He noted that the cyber military attackers were trying to prevent hackers from using ransomware by distributing private information. This strategy is called doxing.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Krebs said, "You have to go after the bad guys, and I'm not just talking about law enforcement."
Cancer comments run counter to conventional thinking of cybersecurity companies, where experts may struggle to determine which opponent they are dealing with or how capable they are. Therefore, experts tend to warn companies about ransomware hackers.
In the past few years, ransomware attacks have become more and more popular as criminals have used commonly used cryptocurrencies (such as Bitcoin) to collect payments that cannot be tracked.
The transition to remote work during the pandemic is making companies more vulnerable to attack, and the practice is becoming more and more common.
This is partly due to ransomware emerging as a service market, as hackers dispose of their expertise from criminals who lack programming skills to launch an attack.
According to data security company SonicWall, the number of attacks in the first three quarters of 2020 increased by about 40% from 142 million to 200 million compared to the same period last year.
Meanwhile, according to an analysis of the Atlas VPN service, average ransom payments doubled from $ 84,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019 to nearly $ 234,000 in the third quarter of 2020.
As the former head of the US Internet Security and Infrastructure Agency, Cripps is responsible for monitoring online threats from the outside.
He was fired by then-President Donald Trump, and only then did he clearly suspect that Russian hackers had infiltrated the systems of many US companies and government agencies.
Krebs now works as an advisor to technology company SolarWinds to help them deal with the fallout from this attack, whose software has been stolen.
Krebs said the threat from widespread government-sponsored abuse is now less than large-scale ransomware attacks by criminals.
In recent years, US states and city governments have been increasingly targeted for extortion. Atlanta was the target of attacks while Baltimore was attacked twice in two years.
"We need more comprehensive tools to stop these things because they are systematically undermining the ability of states and local governments to deliver services."