US Congress Investigates Colonial Pipeline Payout of Cryptocurrencies to Ransomware – Bits Media

Member of the House of Representatives of the US Congress Caroline Malony demands from Colonial Pipeline and CNA Financial to disclose decision -making processes for the payment of crypto assets to hackers, attacked companies.

In the addressed by Colonial Pipeline and CNA Financial letters Chairman of the Committee on Supervision House of representatives of the US Congress Caroline Malony (Carolyn Maloney) asks to provide documents with the presentation of the decision -making process on the payment of ransom to attackers, as well as any documents or messages, obtained from hackers.

Besides, companies must provide information about the reaction to the situation of government institutions, And also about that, whether the firms checked their actions for violations of sanctions. Member of the House of Representatives of the US Congress said:

“I am extremely concerned about those, that the decision to pay international criminals creates a dangerous precedent, which in the future will expose an even greater danger to a critical infrastructure ".

In Maloni's letters, he asks to provide "all the necessary documents", in which described in detail, How the attack was discovered, Whether the companies requested external consultations on the payment of ransom, as well as documents with a detailed description of decryption tools, provided by the attackers. She set the deadline 17 june, Giving companies for two weeks to collect these materials.

The letter reflects a number of actions implemented by the US Government to careful analysis of robber programs, which are used to obtain ransom. Earlier, the Ministry of Justice sent a service note to the offices of the prosecutor's office and department of the United States, in which it asked American prosecutors to submit an “urgent report”, If they learn about a serious attack using robber programs.

The Ministry of Justice is also coordinating the investigation of the distribution of robber programs. Deputy Prosecutor General John Karlin (John Carlin) stated, that the goal is to identify the connection between various hacker groups.

Recall, that the operator of the largest fuel system in the United States Colonial Pipeline paid hackers ransom $5 million in cryptocurrency for system recovery, The failure in which led to fuel deficiency.