FBI director compares ransomware threat to 9/11

FBI Director Chris Wray said a spate of cyberattacks against the US have caused a shift in the thinking of national security officials that is similar to what occurred following 9/11.

Mr Wray made the comments in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

While the US government is targeted with cyberattacks on a near constant basis, two high profile incursions in the past month have left the national security apparatus scrambling to rethink its defences.

Last month, a criminal group managed to breach the Colonial Pipeline, which supplies oil to much of the East Coast and is the nation's largest refined pipeline network.

The incursion forced the pipeline to shut down, which stopped fuel deliveries on the East Coast for several days.

Fears of a looming gas shortage drove a wave of panic buying, further depleting the supply and driving prices up even more.

The debacle ended after the company operating the pipeline paid the hacker group $4.4m to regain access to its computers.

Earlier this week, a ransomware allegedly linked to Russia hit JBS SA's beef plants in the US. As a result, the world's largest processor had to close its plants temporarily.

"Now realising it can affect [Americans] when they’re buying gas at the pump or buying a hamburger — I think there’s a growing awareness now of just how much we’re all in this fight together," Mr Wray said.

He said the attacks have forced national security actors within the US to rethink how they interact with each other and how they approach potential threats.

"There are a lot of parallels, there’s a lot of importance, and a lot of focus by us on disruption and prevention,” he said, referencing the shift in intelligence and defence tactics caused by 9/11. "There's a shared responsibility, not just across government agencies but across the private sector and even the average American. The scale of this problem is one that I think the country has to come to terms with."

Mr Wray – and much of the US intelligence community – has pointed toward Russia as the source of many of the most effective cyberattacks on the US.

Not only do hackers allegedly engage in state-directed attacks, but Mr Wray claims it gives safe refuge to cyber criminal groups like the one that took down the Colonial Pipeline.

"Time and time again, a huge portion of those traced back to actors in Russia. And so, if the Russian government wants to show that it’s serious about this issue, there’s a lot of room for them to demonstrate some real progress that we’re not seeing right now," he said.

Changes driven by the hacking incidents are already under way; the US Department of Justice has drawn up policies for coordinating ransomware attack investigations across agencies, similar to how it handles terrorism cases.