Ransomware gangs scored $1.3 billion in 2023, although the US government has ceased efforts to outlaw such payments for now, per Deputy National Security Advisor Anne Neuberger.

“From an infrastructure perspective, we’ve done takedowns of infrastructure, often with partners around the world—they’re temporary,” Neuberger told attendees at DEF CON 32 in Las Vegas. “There’s so much vulnerable infrastructure that attackers can use in the second round.

“And what’s driving it? It’s often cryptocurrency, and getting paid. 2023 alone is $1.3 billion paid in ransoms,” she added.

Neuberger, one of the top US cybersecurity experts, said the federal government had decided to “take a pause” on criminalizing payments to cybercriminals in part due to concerns it could hamstring critical institutions.

“Folks argue, what are you going to do when a hospital gets hit?” Neuberger asked. “And they say, ‘Well, I pay this $5 million answer, I can recover faster.’”

The US government still wants companies to take seriously the idea that certain “controls” on payments could be instituted in the future, Neuberger added.

Read the rest here.—TM

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After replacing Dark Brandon last month, Vice President Kamala Harris is setting her sights on the presidency, and tech observers are already parsing her words and actions to see how she would work with the industry once in office.

A former California attorney general and previously one of the state’s two senators, Harris has a close familiarity with the tech sector. Early supporters like venture capitalists John Doerr, Ron Conway, are Silicon Valley investors, as is booster Reid Hoffman, a Democratic power broker.

“Ms. Harris’s familiarity with the needs of the tech industry and her ability to innovate and protect the public interest mark her as a 21st-century leader,” Hoffman wrote in an opinion piece for the New York Times on August 3.

In line. Rex Booth, SailPoint CISO, told IT Brew that he believes that a Harris administration would likely listen to industry—and continue to add guardrails to tech. Of particular interest is how the federal government will work to restrict and assist in the development of AI. Booth said that during his time in government as part of the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, leaders in the industry were open to regulation.

Read more here.—EH

Researchers at Binghamton University will spend much of the next school year testing a pair of workplace hypotheses:

• Companies that announce layoffs are more likely to face a cybersecurity breach.
• Orgs that demonstrate some concern for employee well-being, or what the professors call “corporate social responsibility,” can reduce the likelihood and severity of a beach—a difficult task when former team members are packing up their desks.

“They have to explain about their financial losses, and they have to explain about the market trends, and lots of other things, and the need to restructure the entire company, so that people understand that, ‘Hey, that is not personal,’” Binghamton professor Thi Tran told IT Brew.

According to layoffs.fyi, more than 130,400 tech workers in 398 companies have been laid off in 2024. (In 2023, layoffs in the sector reached 264,220. In 2022: 165,269.)

“Layoffs can create conditions where disgruntled employees, facing stress or job insecurity, are more inclined towards risky behaviors that heighten vulnerability to breaches,” the report, which Tran and his colleagues wrote, concluded, claiming that uneasy employees may not prioritize security best practices, and that “layoffs can lead to dissatisfied former staff members who could potentially access sensitive data or systems.”

Keep reading here.—BH

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