Below are five federal cybersecurity initiatives reported by Becker's Hospital Review and launched in the last 30 days.
- The Justice Department launched the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team on Oct. 6 to investigate and prosecute criminal misuse of cryptocurrency in ransomware attacks. The team will move forward under Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite Jr.'s leadership. The enforcement will combine the expertise of the Justice Department's money laundering and asset recovery section, computer crime section and more.
- HHS unveiled on Oct. 13 the top eight ransomware threat actors for hospitals and how many hospitals have been struck between July 1 and Sept. 30, with Conti topping the list as.
- Representatives from more than 30 countries met Oct. 13 and 14 to coordinate their response to ransomware, which has been devastating to hospitals as they simultaneously battle the COVID-19 pandemic. Nations pledged to promote sharing information on attacks among victims, law enforcement and cyber response teams.
- Multiple countries collaborated with the United States to hack the ransomware group REvil and force it offline. Tom Kellerman, head of cybersecurity strategy at VMware and adviser to the U.S. Secret Service, said on Oct. 19 that law enforcement stopped REvil from attacking other companies in conjunction with Cyber Command and the Secret Service.
- The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Nov. 3 it is requiring all federal agencies to patch cyber vulnerabilities within six months. The agencies have two weeks to patch vulnerabilities discovered in 2021 and six months to patch vulnerabilities discovered prior to 2021.