White House Offers $10M Reward for Ransomware Perps

The Biden administration is making a new push to disrupt ransomware attacks on American companies, offering a $10 million reward for information that leads to the arrest of the gangs behind the extortion schemes and attempting to make it easier to trace and block cryptocurrency payments, reports the New York Times. The rewards program, which was announced by the State Department, taps into the same kinds of incentives that have been used in the past to pursue terrorism suspects and drug cartel members.

The White House is also organizing a task force to deal with ransomware, combining the resources of intelligence agencies, the Treasury Department, the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The White House also announced the creation of a website that is intended as a one-stop location to report attacks, and to learn about improving resilience — including setting up elaborate, offline backup systems for data that would obviate the need to pay ransom if a firm’s data is locked up. A key element of that initiative is to trace ransomware payments more quickly and efficiently, and seek to block the criminal groups from cashing in.