Security News > 2021 > September > US Congress asks FBI to explain delay in helping Kaseya atack victims
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform has requested a briefing to understand the rationale behind the FBI's decision to delay providing the victims of the Kaseya REvil ransomware with a universal decryption key for three weeks.
"To understand the FBI's decision, the lawmakers are requesting a briefing from the FBI on its legal and policy rationale for withholding the ransomware key, as well as the FBI's overall strategy for addressing, investigating, preventing, and defeating ransomware attacks," the Committee said in a press release on Wednesday.
As Committee Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney said in a letter addressed to FBI Director Wray, during the FBI's delay to help the REvil ransomware victims, many businesses, schools, and hospitals lost money and time while trying to recover their data and restore impacted systems.
Wray also said to Congress that the delay was the direct result of the FBI coordinating with other agencies and allies.
Another reason invoked by Wray for the delay in helping the Kaseya attack victims was the time needed to test and validate the decryption key, and build a decryptor that could be used to recover encrypted files.
The universal key provided by the FBI to Kaseya was quickly put to use by Emsisoft, who tested it and developed a decryptor within 10 minutes, primarily because of the company's extensive experience with REvil ransomware.