Some insights into the progress against ransomware from the US government during some public appearances at the Aspen Cyber Summit last week. “We’ve only seen the problem continue to get worse, even with all of the efforts we’ve made,” said Paul Abbate, deputy director of the FBI, during the summit. ransomware continues to happen at unacceptable levels,” said Rob Silvers, the Department of Homeland Security’s under-secretary for strategy, policy, and plans, at the event. “We see enough attempted intrusion, and successful intrusions, every day that we’re not letting our guard down even a little bit,” Silvers added.
Despite the efforts put for by the US government, experts note that Ransomware gangs are constantly reinventing themselves, changing targets, and building new tools to attack victims better — creating an ever-moving target for regulators and companies. Many ransomware gangs have started putting more of an emphasis on getting victims to pay to prevent data leaks, rather than for encryption keys that will help unlock any files the ransomware seized — changing how companies respond to attacks.
The good news – the commitment isn’t slowing, but instead increasing.
Just because an issue has been prioritized doesn’t mean change comes overnight. Think big aircraft carrier. Turning that ship takes a while. The problem was expected to worsen before it improved, and changes took time. A warning sign would have been if this was no longer a priority. That’s not the case, so we note the slow forward motion.