Cybersecurity Policy Report, Defense, Intelligence Bill Provisions Target Ransomware Groups, (Dec 19, 2024)
Organizations Mentioned:Director of National Intelligence
The U.S. intelligence community would be directed to treat leading ransomware groups as “hostile foreign cyber actors” and prioritize efforts to counter them under an intelligence authorization bill that cleared Congress yesterday alongside the fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The FY 2025 Intelligence Authorization Act (S.B. 4443, 118th Cong (2024)) lists 18 ransomware organizations and expresses a “sense of Congress” that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) “should deem ransomware threats to critical infrastructure a national intelligence priority as part of the National Intelligence Priorities Framework,” according to the text of the NDAA.
In recent years, annual intelligence authorization legislation has been routinely appended to the NDAA. This year, both authorization bills passed as a package that cleared the Senate yesterday by a vote of 85-14 and was sent to President Biden for his signature (CPR, Dec. 18).
An earlier version of the intelligence bill would have designated nations that harbor ransomware operators as “state sponsors of terror” subject to economic sanctions (CPR, Aug. 1). But that language was softened in the final version.
The legislation would require the ODNI and Federal Bureau of Investigation to submit a report to Congress “on the implications of the ransomware threat to United States national security.”
The report would have to identify the locations of ransomware groups, their tactics, and any “relationships between the individuals, groups, and entities that conduct ransomware attacks and their governments or countries of origin that could impede the ability to counter ransomware threats,” the legislation says.
After the NDAA and Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA) cleared Congress yesterday, Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, stressed the importance of the legislation to the U.S. intelligence community (IC).
“The annual intelligence authorization bill helps ensure that intelligence agencies have the authorities and resources they need to protect against rapidly evolving conflicts and threats,” Sen. Warner said in a news release. “This year’s IAA enhances the IC’s ability to identify and counter emerging technological threats posed by adversarial nations.”
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