Early-Warning Ransomware Tip-Offs Help Block Imminent Attacks
American companies, schools and hospitals are already benefiting from new alerts from the US government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Illustration: Nadia Hafid for Bloomberg Businessweek
Jamil Farshchi was waiting for an Uber in Midtown Manhattan one afternoon in late March when he got a flurry of text messages. One was from the FBI, asking him to call the US government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Another was from a CISA staffer named Klint Walker, saying he needed to speak with Farshchi.
It was clear to Farshchi that there was an emergency. The chief information security officer at Atlanta-based Equifax Inc., a company that issues credit reports on hundreds of millions of people, rang Walker at once.