The U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser revealed that Biden would focus on issues related to the role of cryptocurrencies in ransomware attacks on the forthcoming G7 summit next month.
In a White House press briefing on Monday, Jake Sullivan noted that President Biden and his administration would be interested in knowing the action plans in response to ransomware attacks, the resilience of these plans, and the concerns surrounding cryptocurrencies in general.
The advent of cryptocurrencies has long been seen as a tool by hackers and cybercriminals to perpetrate crime-related financial transactions. Due to the pseudo-anonymity of Bitcoin and other major crypto transactions, they are often requested as the means of payment to cover their tracks. The latest Ransomware attacks involved the Colonial Pipeline Company, stirring a gas shortage and US coastline states.
Referring to the ransomware attacks, Sullivan said crypto “sits at the heart of how these ransom transactions play out,” citing cyber attacks as a “national security priority” for the US government, especially for “critical infrastructure.” The attackers who besieged the Colonial Pipeline systems forced the company to pay $4.4 in total for the ransom.
The National Security Adviser said the role of crypto is now a top priority, noting that the challenge it poses is “a different order of magnitude of a security threat that the alliance needs to be concerned about within a way that it has not historically done.”
The regulations of the crypto landscape in the US are some of the most polarising topics in the relatively new industry. Crypto proponents have argued extend regulations beyond taxation as a tool to help stabilise the ecosystem and wade off the susceptibility of cryptocurrencies to cybercriminals.
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