The White House will convene dozens of governments, the European Union, and a plethora of private-sector organizations on Monday for a two-day summit to discuss how to effectively battle ransomware assaults.
The second International Counter Ransomware Summit will focus on issues such as making systems more resilient so that they can better survive attacks and disrupt criminal actors who are preparing such assaults.
To emphasize the severity of the issue and the summit, a senior Biden administration official mentioned recent attacks, including as one that targeted the Los Angeles school district last month.
In a briefing on the event, a senior administration official stated, “The rate and sophistication of ransomware assaults are expanding more rapidly than our resilience and disruption efforts.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman are among the government officials planning to attend. Vice President Joe Biden is unlikely to attend.
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, Estonia, the European Commission, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Lithuania, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, the Republic of Korea, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States are among the participating countries.
In addition, fifteen private-sector organizations that collaborate with governments to avoid future ransomware attacks will be present. Crowdstrike, Mandiant, Cyber Threat Alliance, Microsoft, Cybersecurity Coalition, Palo Alto, Flexxon, SAP, the Institute for Security + Technology, Siemens, Internet 2.0, Tata – TCS, and Telefónica will be among the participating firms.
The prior summit was held virtually.
This report was supplied by Bo Erickson.