Security News > 2021 > November > FBI: Ransomware gangs hit several tribal-owned casinos in the last year
The FBI's Cyber Division said in a private industry notification issued earlier this week that ransomware gangs have hit several tribal-owned casinos, taking down their systems and disabling connected systems.
Limited cyber investigative capabilities and law enforcement resources are likely some of the reasons behind ransomware groups' seeing US tribes as desirable targets, according to the FBI. Ransomware gangs that coordinated attacks against tribal communities include REvil, Bitpaymer, Ryuk, Conti, Snatch, and Cuba.
The FBI also said that these ransomware attacks had impacted tribal-owned businesses and public services, including tribal governments, healthcare and emergency service providers, and schools.
The attacks' impact varied depending on the tribal entity affected but, in at least one case, ransomware operators took down a tribe's police department's computer system, the 911 system, and the public health system.
To show the scale of the financial losses ransomware targets are facing lately, last month, the US Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network identified roughly $5.2 billion in outgoing BTC transactions potentially tied to ransomware payments.
The same day, senior officials from over 30 countries said that their governments would crack down on cryptocurrency payment channels used by ransomware gangs to finance their operations.