US senators urge stricter crypto regulation after a flood of ransomware attacks

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) on January 30, 2020 and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) on February 3, 2020 both in taken in Washington, DC.
Samuel Corum/Getty Images for Mark Warner. Pete Marovich/Getty Images for Roy Blunt.

A pair of US senators urged stricter cryptocurrency regulation after a series of ransomware attacks on key US infrastructure targets.
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia and Republican Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri spoke with NBC Meet the Press on Sunday.
Both called on more transparency especially when it came to tracing cryptocurrency payments.
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Two US senators called for stricter cryptocurrency regulation after a flood of ransomware attacks that plagued the country in the past months.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told NBC Meet the Press on Sunday that regulators need to scrutinize the cryptocurrency loopholes that help criminals carry 0ut cyberattacks.

"There was some good things coming out of distributed ledger technology, but we are seeing now some of the dark underbelly," Warner said. "If a company is paying, if there's not some transparency of that payment, the bad guys will simply find another way to hide it."

The senator said while there has been some progress when it comes to bipartisan legislation, the debate about cryptocurrencies and ransomware is "just starting."

In May, the Colonial Pipeline paid DarkSide Ransomware a $5 million ransom to restore services, Bloomberg reported. The transaction was said to be untraceable.

The following month, JBS, the largest meat supplier in the US, revealed it was hit by a cyberattack that affected some of its systems. Whether there was a payment of ransom or not remains unclear.

Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, also a member of the Intelligence Committee, said regulators need to demand more transparency when it comes to attacks like these to protect the American financial system.

"Nobody wanted to report that they had been hacked. That was a fight we've been having now for almost a decade," he told NBC Meet the Press. But "the only way you can begin to get on top of this is to know how pervasive the problem is."

He continued: "We have a lot of cash requirements in our country, but we haven't figured out in the country or in the world how to trace cryptocurrency."

"There ought to be more transparency if a company does pay, so we can go after the bad guys," Warner said. "Right now what's happening around ransomware, not only are the companies often not reporting that they are attacked, but they're not reporting the ransomware payments."

The Biden administration is reportedly looking at how to increase oversight of the cryptocurrency market to protect retail investors, sources told The Washington Post. The administration is also analyzing potential gaps that may be used to finance illicit activities, sources said.

US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has been critical of cryptocurrencies in the past, calling out their misuse, which she described in February as "a growing problem."

"I see the promise of these new technologies," the former Federal Reserve chief said. "But I also see the reality: cryptocurrencies have been used to launder the profits of online drug traffickers; they've been a tool to finance terrorism."

Read the original article on Business Insider