Ransomware Weaponized: Nation States, Cryptocurrencies, and Great Power Competition

Nation state-sponsored threat actors develop, disseminate, and deploy ransomware in conjunction with lower sophistication threat actors as a means to disrupt critical infrastructures and covertly influence global great power competitions. While the profits from ransomware attacks appeal to lower-tier attackers and draw them into the threat landscape, nation-state APTs instead benefit from the disruption and chaos that results from both targeted and widespread attacks on the critical infrastructures of their geopolitical rivals.

This publication will discuss:

• How and why nation-state sponsored advanced persistent (APT) threat actors support and leverage lower sophistication threat actors in ransomware campaigns.

• The role of disruptionware in great power competition.

• Key nation-state threat actors in disruptionware campaigns.

• A “whole-of-nation” stakeholder response to combating ransomware.

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ICIT would like to thank the following Fellows and Contributors for offering their analysis and perspectives: