Hello. Below is a message from the Dallas Field Office Cyber Division
Greetings. This is Richard Murray, FBI Dallas Cyber Supervisory Special Agent. We would like to share an update on the ransomware threat with you.
FBI Dallas Cyber Criminal Squad
I supervise the FBI Dallas Cyber Criminal squad of agents, analysts, task force officers, and computer scientist. My team is working cyber criminal threats, which are primarily, but not exclusively, driven by financially motivated actors. These attackers are after our money or information which can be monetized in online criminal marketplaces. Cyber Criminal threats include Business Email Compromise, Ransomware, DDOS attacks, hacktivists seeking to promote an ideology or embarrass an organization by attacking or publishing private data, data breaches of financial, PII, or healthcare information, insider threats involving current or former employees, and more.
Ransomware Trends
Today, my focus is ransomware. I recently recorded a video discussing the latest on ransomware which was posted to the FBI Dallas Twitter feed today. Check it out on the link below. Ransomware activity is very high and my team receives reports every day of new ransomware victims. In one variant we see, attackers are focusing their attacks on weekends, possibly to prevent the victim from detecting and mitigating the attack in time. Although there are many “variants” of ransomware, the end result is the same, encrypted files disrupting a victim’s operations and rendering critical data unavailable. Victims are then faced with a ransom demand, which can range from tens of thousands to millions of dollars. Even when victims have offline backups which can be used to recover their data, some threat actors have exfiltrated data which they then threaten to publicly disclose, thereby increasing the leverage on the victim to pay the ransom.
In light of the high threat ransomware environment, a review of your deployed security measures is warranted. Are there any gaps in your security program which can be strengthened? If you are impacted by ransomware attacks or other data breach incidents, please don’t hesitate to contact me or my team. We are committed to working collaboratively with you to investigate these cyber attacks so the FBI and our partners can identify those behind these attacks and impose cost and consequences such as arrests, indictments, sanctions, and disrupting their infrastructure.
Additional Resources
FBI SSA Murray Ransomware: Video
FBI Protected Voices Ransomware: Video
CISA Ransomware: CISA Ransomware Resources
Richard J Murray
Supervisory Special Agent
Criminal Cyber
Brett Leatherman
Supervisory Special Agent
National Security Cyber