Calls for tougher stance toward Russia grow louder as ransomware attacks rage

The excruciatingly slow gears of the U.S. government are starting to move with more urgency when it comes to dealing with geopolitical ransomware attacks.

The Colonial Pipeline hack and the ransomware breach of a major food processing facility in recent weeks, coupled with Windows server exploits and the still unfolding saga of an attack on oil company Saudi Aramco, have caught the attention of U.S. government leaders. The question now will be how the U.S. will respond to growing unease over the disruption of global commerce.

“There has been a sea change in the last two or three months in Congress with respect to how seriously policymakers are taking cybersecurity,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-Connecticut), said during a virtual panel discussion hosted by The Wilson Center this week. “Twelve years ago in this institution, if you said cybersecurity, people would look at you quizzically. Colonial Pipeline was different than the other stuff.”

Sheltering attackers

What has changed the dynamic for leaders in Washington and global capitals elsewhere is a growing belief that some nation-states are either behind the attacks or quietly supporting the criminal gangs that perpetrate them. The Colonial Pipeline attack, which disrupted supplies of oil and gas for the eastern half of the U.S. in May, has been attributed to DarkSide, a criminal gang operating out of Russia.

A ransomware attack on the food processing company JBS led to a disruption of meat supplies this summer and the group responsible has been identified as REvil, another Russian criminal group. This month, the Biden administration named the Chinese government as behind a cyberattack on Microsoft Exchange servers that compromised tens of thousands of networks worldwide.

The disruption caused by groups operating inside two large global superpowers has resulted in rising calls for action by U.S. authorities. Himes recently wrote an opinion piece for a Connecticut newspaper calling for the U.S. to “strike back” against cyberattackers.

In his remarks during the Wilson Center event this week, Himes suggested that the government should consider pursuit of wealthy interests inside of Russia. “We really need to establish a…