On Sunday, the United States Treasury Department announced a new partnership with Israel to expand bilateral cooperation in combatting ransomware.
“Harnessing both the power of international cooperation and of technology innovation will position us to support economic competitiveness, prosperity, and to combat global threats including ransomware,” said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo. “As the global economy recovers and ransomware and other illicit finance threats present a grave challenge to Israel and the United States, increased information exchanges, joint work, and collaboration on policy, regulation, and enforcement are critical to our economic and national security objectives.”
The partnership has been well-received by the cyber community.
“International partnerships are going to be absolutely critical in the battle against ransomware actors. This was one of the key tenants of the Ransomware Task Force (RTF) framework. This isn’t something the US can or should try to do alone. These partnerships will need to take different forms to be effective," said Adam Flatley, Director of Threat Intelligence, [redacted].
"Some, like this one, will be bilateral where the two countries can collaborate at the fullest level of trust that they share with each other. The US and Israel have long worked closely and effectively together on critical security issues of common interest. Others will be multilateral, with collaboration being governed by what collective trust level the group has. Such level of trust is usually less than a bilateral relationship but can foster broader sharing of less sensitive things more quickly. All of these relationships are valuable and necessary in concert with a global coordinated campaign to truly mitigate this threat."
###