Laws and regulations

The Biden administration plans to target exchanges supporting ransomware operations with sanctions

US Government is expected to issue sanctions against crypto exchanges, wallets, and traders used by ransomware operations to cash out ransom payments.

The Biden administration is putting in place all the strategies to disrupt the operations of the ransomware gangs, and according to the Wall Street Journal, it is now planning to target the digital finance infrastructure used by these criminal organizations.

The Biden administration is expected to apply sanctions against crypto exchanges, wallets, and traders used by the gangs to cash out ransom payments.

“The Biden administration is preparing an array of actions, including sanctions, to make it harder for hackers to use digital currency to profit from ransomware attacks, according to people familiar with the matter.” states the WSJ. “The government hopes to choke off access to a form of payment that has supported a booming criminal industry and a rising national security threat.”

Over the past years, the number of ransomware attacks has exponentially increased, causing huge losses to the victims and disrupting their activities.

The operations also targeted the US critical infrastructure, the attack against Colonial Pipeline demonstrates the potential damages that such kind of criminal practice could cause to the US citizens.

The US authorities want to target the economy behind the ransomware operations, disrupting the process used by the gang to convert their ransom payments to fiat currency.

Every time victims pay ransomware, the cryptocurrencies are transferred to wallets used by the ransomware gangs then the groups attempt to launder the money by using so-called mixer services. The final step consists of converting the crypto funds through exchanges.

The authorities want to make pressure on the exchanges that are critical components for ransomware operations and threaten to apply sanctions for their support to the criminal practive.

“An action of this kind would be an aggressive, proactive approach to going after those who facilitate ransomware payments,” Ari Redbord, a former senior Treasury security official, told the Wall Street Journal.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, sanctions)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

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