"From an FBI perspective, we have not seen a decrease in ransomware attacks in the past couple of months originating from Russia," Bryan Vorndran, assistant director of the FBI's cyber division, told Congress on Tuesday. In early November, the country's top military cyber officer, Army General Paul Nakasone, said it was "too soon to tell" if the Kremlin had facilitated the international hunt for cybercriminals after the United States handed over names of wanted suspects. The ransomware cartel did not stop for even a single moment." But actually, what we see is a steady stream of these types of hacks. "We thought that after President Biden met with President Putin, we'd see a decrease in those types of attacks. "From the beginning of this year, we've seen a massive push in cyber intrusions, specifically originating from the ransomware cartel in Russia, starting all the way from Colonial Pipeline to the JBS hack," Div told CBS News.
But attacks have persisted despite "too soon to tell" and diplomatic efforts aimed at curtailing Russia-linked ransomware operations. In June, President Biden demanded that Russian President Vladimir Putin put an end to cybercriminal operations using Russia as a safe harbor. And this year, the average ransom payment is up more than 500% over 2020, amounting to $5.3 million, according to Cybereason. Ransomware payments reached over $400 million in 2020, the FBI reported. Commerce Department - and the trade group CompTIA.
In the United States, there are nearly 500,000 vacancies for cybersecurity jobs, according to Cyber Seek - a tech job-tracking database from the U.S. Nearly three-quarters surveyed admitted they were intoxicated while responding to a ransomware attack on the weekend or during a holiday, "a risk factor for organizations that may not have been accounted for by incident response and business continuity plans," according to the report.Īnd the vulnerability of these organizations is further exacerbated by holes in the workforce. The new report by Cybereason revealed the human cost of such attacks, with 86% of respondents missing holidays or weekend activities with family and friends to return to work in the wake of a cyber incident. Supporting games such as Brawl Stars, PUBG and Fortnite, Gizer is a mobile platform enabling mobile gamers to create and join teams, host tournaments, watch livestreams, play in automated head-to-head challenges and compete for cash rewards.Colonial Pipeline paid a $4.4 million in ransom to the DarkSide group after being forced to shut down its operations during Mother's Day weekend, though the FBI later recovered $2.3 million of the ransom from the Russia-based hacking group. "I am very confident that Critical Ops tournament organizers, as well as players, will love Gizer." "Gizer offers a fresh experience and a user-friendly way to organize Critical Ops tournaments," commented Critical Force CEO Veli-Pekka Piirainen. The partnership will enable Critical Force and its community to better organise event management, communications, and promotional support, especially in terms of receiving prizes and in-game credits.įormally known as the Critical Ops Community Tournament Program, it will be available to selected partners in beta before being rolled out more generally.Ĭritical Ops has been downloaded more than 80 million times and has more than 100,000 gamers in its Discord channel.
Finnish developer Critical Force has hooked up with mobile gaming platform Gizer as the official tournament partner for its mobile team-shooter Critical Ops.