Treasury To Try To Strangle Ransomware Money Flow

Computer ransom is a lucrative business, with some experts estimating that it has garnered over $412 Million in 2020.

Not bad for part time work.

But, the U.S. government is starting to move. In the past couple of weeks, Coinbase tweeted that the SEC had “threatened” to take legal action against it for engaging in a lending business.

And recently, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. Treasury may be taking action against cryptocurrency exchanges.

When Treasury Secretary Yellin’s view of Bitcoin is “I fear it’s often [used] for illicit finance,” you can imagine that there’s likely no movement there to ignore the fact that most ransonware attackers have their payoffs flow through various cryptocurrency exchanges and private wallets in an effort to avoid detection.

The government now wants to disrupt the money flow by sanctioning public exchanges that the digital criminals use to flow their funds.

So, while the government still can’t reach the perpetrators, many of whom reside in Russia, North Korea or China, it can disrupt their payment schemes by going after legitimate businesses that (wittingly or unwittingly) assist them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/09/17/biden-sanctions-ransomware-crypto/

Source: https://jeffkoeppel.wordpress.com/2021/09/20/treasury-to-try-to-strangle-ransomware-money-flow/