Tag Archive for: Biden

Biden Administration Takes New Steps To Combat Ransomware Attacks

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The U.S. Treasury Department today announced a series of steps aimed at combating the growing number of ransomware attacks. The attacks have created crisis situations for companies and organizations across the country, including Colonial Pipeline, a JBS meat processing plant, and this past weekend a major agricultural cooperative.

The Treasury’s actions today include:

  • Attempting to disrupt criminal networks and virtual currency exchanges responsible for laundering ransoms.
  • Encouraging improved cyber security across the private sector.
  • Increasing incident and ransomware payment reporting to U.S. government agencies, including both Treasury and law enforcement. 

The federal agency said the actions, “advance the United States government’s broader counter-ransomware strategy, which emphasizes the need for a collaborative approach to counter ransomware attacks, including partnership between the public and private sector and close relationships with international partners.”

Ransomware Attacks On The Rise

According to the Treasury Department, ransomware attacks are increasing in scale, sophistication, and frequency, victimizing governments, individuals, and private companies around the world. In 2020, ransomware payments exceeded $400 million, more than four times their level in 2019. 

Sending Signals

Tom Robinson is the chief scientist and co-founder of crypto asset risk management firm Elliptic. He said, “Rogue cryptocurrency exchanges have long been key enablers for ransomware gangs. This action by the U.S. government sends a clear signal that it will not tolerate this activity, wherever it is based.

“The impact on the sanctioned exchange will be severe. The Office of Foreign Asset Control has effectively cut it off from access to the U.S. dollar. Banks everywhere will be on alert.”

Bryson Bort, CEO of information security company Scythe,…

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Biden Administration to Deport Haitians in Del Rio, Texas

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This week, the United States resumed deportation flights to Haiti under the public health order. Immigration and Customs Enforcement repatriated about 90 Haitians on Wednesday.

Among those deported were families with young children, according to the Haitian Bridge Alliance, an advocacy group, which also said that they had been expelled under Title 42. Many Haitian families have claimed fear and are not being deported, the official said.

ICE Air uses chartered aircraft that have the capacity to transport about 135 people. The Defense Department is expected to provide some planes as well to transfer migrants to other border stations to ease overcrowding in Del Rio. ICE has flown migrants from the Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio to El Paso, Tucson and San Diego for processing.

In recent months, the administration has stepped up deportation flights to Mexico, Central America and South America. In August, there were 99 likely removal flights compared with 46 in July and 35 in June, according to Tom Cartwright, who tracks ICE Air flights for Witness at the Border, an advocacy group.

Haitians represent a small share of border crossers, or about 4 percent of the migrants encountered by border agents in August, dwarfed by Central Americans and Mexicans.

But their numbers have swelled in recent months. Nearly 28,000 Haitians have been intercepted by the Border Patrol along the United States-Mexico border in the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, compared with 4,395 in 2020 and 2,046 in 2019. Of the nearly 28,000, fewer than 4,000 were turned away under the public health rule, according to the most recent border data, which covers arrests through the end of August.

Despite the public health measure, along some stretches of the border the United States has not been expelling migrant families with young children because Mexico has refused to accept them. And on some days, Mexicans tell border officials that their shelters are at capacity and can take only a certain number of migrants.

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FEC says Twitter acted legally in blocking Hunter Biden laptop stories, pointing to claim of intel warnings about hacking

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The Federal Elections Commission said on Wednesday its members unanimously rejected complaints from the Republican National Committee and others that Twitter’s decision to block the sharing of links to articles from the New York Post related to Hunter Biden’s laptop constituted an illegal contribution to now-President Joe Biden’s candidacy.

In announcing the decision, the FEC pointed to Twitter’s assertion that part of the reason it stopped the spread of the New York Post articles in October was over concerns that foreign actors obtained the salacious materials through hacking. The social media giant claimed the U.S. Intelligence Community was warning about such an effort in the lead-up to the 2020 election. No evidence has emerged that the Hunter Biden laptop story stemmed from a foreign hacking operation.

The FEC said there was a 6-0 vote in finding “no reason to believe” that Twitter violated the law “by making corporate in-kind contributions” and “no reason to believe” that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey or Brandon Borrman, who was Twitter vice president of global communications, broke the law.

In response to reporting on the decision published on Monday, RNC spokeswoman Emma Vaughn said the group was “weighing its options for appealing this disappointing decision from the FEC.”

An October complaint  from the RNC alleged: “Through its ad hoc, partisan oppression of media critical of Biden, [Twitter] is making illegal, corporate in-kind contributions as it provides unheard-of media services for Joe Biden’s campaign.” The RNC argued at the time that Twitter was “doing so for the clear purpose of supporting the Biden campaign.”

Robert Kelner, a lawyer who had represented retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn before Sidney Powell took over his representation, helped represent Twitter in the FEC complaint, writing in December that “Twitter undertook, for bona fide commercial reasons” actions to block potentially hacked content.

A lengthy statement from Yoel Roth, head of site integrity for Twitter, was included in Kelner’s response.

“Since 2018, I have…

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The Biden Administration just revealed its plan to stop the next Colonial Pipeline hack

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On Wednesday, President Biden signed a National Security Memorandum that aims to improve national cybersecurity. 





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It directs the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to collaborate with other agencies to develop cybersecurity performance standards for companies across the US that provide essential services like power, water, and transportation. When systems that control these vital infrastructures malfunction or are interrupted because of an incident such as a ransomware attack, it can jeopardize national security, economic security, as well as public health and safety.

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The memorandum also formally establishes the President’s Industrial Control System Cybersecurity (ICS) Initiative, which is a voluntary, collaborative effort between the federal government and the critical infrastructure community to establish systems that can detect cyberthreats and send timely alerts. The ICS Initiative kicked off in mid-April with an Electricity Subsector pilot, in which the Department of Energy worked with over 150 electricity utilities to plan and deploy cybersecurity tech for their control systems. Officials also gathered a number of utility and pipeline CEOs to brief them on cybersecurity threats. 

The Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA) rolled out a directive earlier this year requiring critical pipeline owners and operators to report cybersecurity incidents as well as have their current practices reviewed by a designated Cybersecurity Coordinator after a major petroleum pipeline was attacked by ransomware in May. 

[Related: How a ransomware attack shut down a major US fuel pipeline]

And last week, the TSA issued a second directive which requires owners and operators of pipelines that transport hazardous liquids and natural gas to instate measures that can protect against ransomware and other cyber attacks. They also require the development of a recovery plan. Owners will also have to review their cybersecurity design every year.

“Recent…

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