The United States Government will try to get countries that are part of its initiative against “ransomware” to commit to not paying ransoms to cybercriminals who carry out this type of attacks.
Asked to discuss the White House’s priorities for the third annual Anti-Ransomware Initiative (CRI) summit, which will take place over the next two days in Washington, an administration official said it would be difficult to agree on this. that kind of declarations if there are 50 countries. who are members of the group.
However, the official is optimistic and said that they are close to getting all the signatures.
Another commitment that the US wants to achieve is to share with countries a list of digital wallets dedicated to the transfer of illegitimate funds, so that they can stop transactions that come from “ransomware.”
Washington will also seek that countries that are part of the group, including South Korea, Canada, Japan or Uruguay, cooperate with each other if a “ransomware” attack endangers important sectors or infrastructure of government and society. .
The Initiative Against “Ransomware” began in 2021 with a virtual meeting of about 30 countries convened by the United States to promote cooperation against this type of digital attacks, which block the operating system of victims and asking for compensation to restore them.
These types of attacks affect government institutions, but also hospitals or private companies.
According to data from the US Government, it is estimated that the economic damages from “ransomware” attacks in 2021 will be $20 billion. This number is expected to increase to 71.5 billion by 2026.
