A Year on from the Ransomware Task Force Report

A Year on from the Ransomware Task Force Report

If you follow cybersecurity, you’ve likely seen one of the many articles written recently on the one-year anniversary of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, which saw fuel delivery suspended for six days, disrupting air and road travel across the southeastern states of the US. The Colonial attack was the biggest cyberattack against US critical infrastructure, making it something of a game-changer in the realm of ransomware, so it is absolutely worth noting the passage of time and investigating what’s changed since.

This blog will do that, but I’ll take a slightly different tack, as I’m also marking the anniversary of the Ransomware Task Force’s (RTF) report, which offered 48 recommendations for policymakers wanting to deter, disrupt, prepare, and respond to ransomware attacks. The report was issued a week prior to the Colonial attack.

Last week, I participated in an excellent event to mark the one-year anniversary of the RTF report. During the session, various ransomware experts discussed how the ransomware landscape has evolved over the past year, how government action has shaped this, and what more needs to be done. The Institute for Security and Technology (IST), which convenes and runs the RTF, has issued a paper capturing the points above. This blog offers my own thoughts on the matter, but it’s not at all exhaustive, and I recommend giving the official paper a read.

High-profile attacks raised the stakes

Looking back over the past year, in many ways, the Colonial ..

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