{"id":9150,"date":"2021-07-05T15:54:06","date_gmt":"2021-07-05T15:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/joe-biden-directs-us-intelligence-to-investigate-ransomware-attack-against-florida-it-firm\/"},"modified":"2021-07-05T15:54:06","modified_gmt":"2021-07-05T15:54:06","slug":"joe-biden-directs-us-intelligence-to-investigate-ransomware-attack-against-florida-it-firm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/joe-biden-directs-us-intelligence-to-investigate-ransomware-attack-against-florida-it-firm\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Biden Directs US Intelligence to Investigate Ransomware Attack Against Florida IT Firm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Joe Biden wants to crackdown on ransomware according to statements he made on Friday, after hackers hijacked software from a Miami-based IT supplier called Kaseya. Hundreds of American businesses were affected by the breach as the attackers encrypted the files of some 200 clients. Biden said on Friday that he\u2019s ordered an investigation into the exploited Florida-based IT infrastructure.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Biden Directs US Intelligence Agencies to Look Into the Kaseya Ransomware Attack<\/h2>\n<p>Following the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, this past week an IT supplier called Kaseya was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/technology\/200-businesses-hit-by-ransomware-following-incident-us-it-firm-huntress-labs-2021-07-02\/\">breached<\/a> and the company\u2019s software management tool called VSA was exploited. This attack affected a great number of Kaseya clients on Friday and suspicions of Russian gang involvement were sparked by investigators. Huntress, a security company, said that the company believes Russians were involved and blames a gang called Revil. The Revil ransomware gange is suspected of attacking the meatpacking company JBS last month as well.<\/p>\n<p>American president Joe Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2021\/jul\/03\/kaseya-ransomware-attack-us-sweden\">remarked<\/a> during a public appearance that he had directed U.S. intelligence agencies to investigate the matter and that the U.S. would do something if Russia was found to be behind it. Last month, Biden met with Russian president Vladimir Putin and told the leader that if ransomware attacks continued and were found to be from Russia there would be consequences. However, Biden said \u201cwe\u2019re not certain\u201d who was behind the attack on the Florida IT company and added:<\/p>\n<p>The initial thinking was it was not the Russian government but we\u2019re not sure yet.<\/p>\n<p>Kaseya\u2019s chief executive, Fred Voccola, told the press that the company had found the vulnerability and would \u201crelease that patch as quickly as possible to get our customers back up and running.\u201d John Hammond, Huntress senior security researcher, said that this single piece of shared software allowed hundreds of companies to get exploited. \u201cThis is a colossal and devastating supply chain attack,\u201d Hammond stressed on Friday.<\/p>\n<p><!-- growjs zone placement 31 -->    <!-- end of growjs zone placement --> <\/p>\n<h2>Ransomware Has Pushed the Biden Administration Toward Investigating the Crypto Ecosystem<\/h2>\n<p>Biden\u2019s statements follow U.S. Department of State\u2019s undersecretary of state for political affairs Victoria Nuland\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/us-state-department-official-wants-el-salvador-to-ensure-bitcoin-is-well-regulated\/\">comments<\/a> about the Colonial Pipeline hack. Speaking of a discussion she had with Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele, Nuland remarked that after the Colonial Pipeline ransomware hack the U.S. State Department was taking a \u201ctough look at bitcoin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The U.S.-based energy firm Colonial Pipeline saw its <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/report-colonial-pipeline-paid-5m-worth-in-crypto-to-ransomware-gang-restarts-services\/\">infrastructure fold<\/a> in May after a ransomware gang exploited the system. Colonial Pipeline then paid the hackers 75 bitcoin (<a class=\"lar-automated-link\" href=\"https:\/\/markets.bitcoin.com\/crypto\/BTC\">BTC<\/a>) to get its infrastructure back online. However, in early June, U.S. law enforcement agencies said they <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/fbi-agent-recovers-private-key-2-3m-bitcoin-paid-colonial-pipeline-hackers\/\">recovered<\/a> a majority of the funds (63.70 <a class=\"lar-automated-link\" href=\"https:\/\/markets.bitcoin.com\/crypto\/BTC\">BTC<\/a>) that were meant to go to the ransomware gang members.<\/p>\n<p>Before the Kaseya hack, Biden\u2019s administration had already published a \u201cMemorandum on Establishing the Fight Against Corruption as a Core United States National Security Interest\u201d in the first week of June. Biden\u2019s directive to federal agencies put cryptocurrencies in the spotlight and the administration explains that the directive is meant to bolster national security.<\/p>\n<p>A Kaseya hack response team member said that the breach on Friday sent out a myriad of ransom demands to all the businesses that were infected. Reuters reports that demands for \u201ca few thousand dollars to $5 million or more\u201d were sent to the clients affected by the Kaseya ransomware attack.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>What do you think about Joe Biden giving a directive to U.S. intelligence agencies to investigate the Kaseya ransomware hack? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Bitcoin News<br \/>\nNews, Biden Administration, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Ransom, Colonial Pipeline, Crypto Ransom, Cryptocurrency, directive, Florida IT company, Joe Biden, Kaseya ransomware hack, National Security, ransomware, Ransomware attacks, Russia, russians, Vladimir Putin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joe Biden wants to crackdown on ransomware according to statements he made on Friday, after hackers hijacked software from a Miami-based IT supplier called Kaseya. Hundreds of American businesses were affected by the breach as the attackers encrypted the files of some 200 clients. Biden said on Friday that he\u2019s ordered an investigation into the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blockchain-news","category-coin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9150"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buyucoin.com\/crypto-labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}