The U.S. Treasury Department on Sunday launched a new collaboration with Israel to expand bilateral cooperation in the fight against ransomware.
According to the Treasury Department, the task force would create a memorandum of understanding to assist financial sector information sharing, such as cybersecurity rules and threat intelligence.
The statement comes after the Counter-Ransomware Initiative meeting, which took place virtually at the White House in October with the European Union and more than 30 countries, including Israel.
"At that meeting, Deputy Secretary Adeyemo underscored the importance of international cooperation to address the abuse of virtual currency and disrupt the ransomware business model," the Treasury Department said.
A statement from the Treasury Department said the expanded cooperation will take place under the auspices of a larger US-Israel task group on fintech innovation and cybersecurity, which was also created on Sunday.
In order to combat money laundering and terror financing, the task force will host a series of expert technical exchanges on policy, regulatory, and outreach to boost fintech innovation."
Adeyemo is traveling to a number of Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, for talks on cybersecurity and ransomware, terrorist financing, and post-COVID economic recovery, the Treasury said.
Adeyemo's visit to Israel came less than a week after the U.S. Department of Commerce added two Israeli phone spyware companies, NSO Group and Candiru, to a list of foreign entities engaged in malicious cyber activities.
NSO Group and Candiru, a lesser-known competitor in the cyber-surveillance business, were accused of supplying governments with spyware that was later deployed against journalists and activists.
In the U.S. this year, ransomware attacks crippled key infrastructure, food manufacturers, a police department, the NBA, and private industry firms.
A Ukrainian national and a Russian were accused by the U.S. Justice Department earlier this month in one of the deadliest ransomware attacks on American targets.
Separately, the FBI announced on Sunday that hackers did not get access to any data or personal information on its network, a day after they hacked into an agency server and sent out thousands of bogus emails.
The agency stated that the software flaw that allowed the attack has been fixed.
Meanwhile, according to a recent major study, Israel has been the country most impacted by ransomware since 2020.
In January 2022, U.S. Treasury officials will attend the CyberTech Global Tel Aviv conference, building on their current collaboration.
