TL;DR Breakdown
- G7 to fight crypto-ransomware attacks
- Revenue made from ransomware attacks
The G7 are already resolving to make a commitment towards fighting against ransomware attacks which shuts people out of network until they pay a ransom to get access back.
Per a Press Release from the White House, the recent rise in attacks like this have led to an escalating threat to the G7 countries.
“Transnational criminal enterprises leverage infrastructure, virtual currency, and money laundering networks, and target victims all over the globe, often operating from geographic locations that offer a permissive environment for carrying out such malicious cyber activities, the document reads.
This is coming against the backdrop of recent attacks in the US crippling activities of the Colonial Pipeline and the meat supply company JBS most recently. It disrupted the supply chains of both firms and drove prices of meat and gas up. Both had to pay ransom to eventually gain access to their computers back.
Despite popular rumors that the attacks are from a group in Russia, President Biden has denied such reports and is set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin later this week.
G7 agreement on stopping recurring ransomware attacks
The world leaders agreed to a set of concrete actions around key priorities responding to forced labor in global supply chains, the ransomware threat, and fighting corruption.
This was contained in the White House press release titled ‘FACT SHEET: G7 to Announce Joint Actions on Forced Labor in Global Supply Chains, Anticorruption, and Ransomware.
In their commitment to fighting the cyberattack, they identified the attack as a longstanding global challenge and the threat that continues to escalate in both scale and sophistication.
They note that both governments, the private sector and the international community has to work together to ensure that critical infrastructure is resilient against this threat. The White House says it and G7 partners are ready to work together to address the escalating shared threat from criminal ransomware networks.
How bad are these ransomware attacks?
According to chainalysis, a crypto analytical firm it estimates that around the amount of crypto heisted in these attacks grew 311 percent last year. In the first four and a half months of this year, ransomware was responsible for at least $81 million in stolen funds worldwide.
The firm notes that it also expects the figures to rise new crimes are discovered retroactively.
