Ransomware, Threat Management, Governance, Risk and Compliance

Russian cyber threat involved in nearly 2M warrantless FBI data searches

CNN reports that 1.9 million of up to 3.4 million warrantless electronic data searches conducted by the FBI last year involved Russian cybersecurity threats against U.S. critical infrastructure. Attempted foreign state-sponsored cyberattacks against U.S. critical infrastructure accounted for over 50% of the FBI's queries in early 2021, an annual transparency report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence revealed. While the FBI refused to name the Russian hacking effort, the U.S. had launched investigations on the widespread SolarWinds hack and the major ransomware attack against Colonial Pipeline, both of which have been attributed to Russian threat actors, during the first six months of last year. CNN notes the difference between the total number of FBI queries in the report and the number of individuals who had their data evaluated, with searches of individuals' various identifiers potentially counted as unique queries. Queries could also be significantly lower than the 3.4 million figure.

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