The United States Government has decided to turn to large technology companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft to reinforce their cybersecurity strategies after falling victim to a series of targeted ransomware attacks that affected part of the country’s critical infrastructure.
The initiative, called “Joint Cyber Defense Collaboration” (JCDC, for its acronym in English), will be presented this Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security. In the first instance it will focus on deal with ransomware threats and other types of cyber attacks against cloud computing providers.
Another objective of the JCDC program is to improve defense planning and information exchange between the private sector and the Government. According to Jen easterly, director of the Infrastructure and Cybersecurity Security Agency (CISA), this will allow the creation of strategies in times of peace “to answer in times of war“.
How it collects CNBC, a dozen US tech companies have already agreed to work with CISA on its new initiative against ransomware attacks. The first task force consists of Crowdstrike, Palo Alto Networks, FireEye, Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen.
A proactive stance to stop ransomware
Apparently, the United States wants to adopt a proactive stance rather than reactive in the face of ransomware attacks in recent months. Last year, a group of hackers affected the normal operation of several hospitals by interrupting health alerts for patients and diverting ambulances.
But this is not all. They have also impacted the energy industry. The clearest example of this has been the cyberattack on Colonial Pipeline in May of this year. Ransomware malware forced the pipeline to shut down and the company decided to pay a $ 4.4 million ransom to recover its hijacked systems.
President Joe Biden has not hesitated to target Russia and China in the wake of the wave of cyber threats affecting his country. While the government continues to work to find the largest number of culprits and faces millions in losses caused by ransomware.
After this panorama, the Senate seems to have understood the seriousness of the problem. Now the Upper House of Congress seeks to accelerate a infrastructure project $ 1.2 trillion. This includes a series of additional measures to strengthen the cybersecurity of the country.