The United States and Israel have established a new bilateral partnership that will see both countries work together to combat ransomware and other pressing cyber threats. The new partnership builds on the longstanding relationship between the US Treasury Department and the Israeli Ministry of Finance. Moreover, the two countries will create a joint task force to address cybersecurity working together to disrupt ransomware operations. The Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Wally Adeyemo explained in a press release announcing the new partnership. He said the US and Israel will work together to safeguard the global economy from ransomware and cyberattacks. Adeyemo said, “Harnessing both the power of international cooperation and of technology innovation will position us to support economic competitiveness, prosperity, and to combat global threats including ransomware”.
Adeyemo added, “As the global economy recovers and ransomware and other illicit finance threats present a grave challenge to Israel and the United States, increased information exchanges, joint work, and collaboration on policy, regulation, and enforcement are critical to our economic and national security objectives”. However, the task force will start working as its first order of business to develop a Memorandum of Understanding which will cover sharing information related to the financial sector, staff training, and study visits to promote cooperation and competency-building activities such as cross-border cybersecurity exercises.
Moreover, the task force will also launch a series of expert technical exchanges on policy, regulation, and outreach to support innovation in the fintech sector which both the US and Israel have agreed to encourage. The two countries need to help the fintech sector to develop robust cybersecurity protections that can advance compliance on anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing, and countering the financing of proliferation. The US Treasury also plans to participate in the CyberTech Global Tel Aviv conference as part of the new partnership, which will be held in Israel in January of next year. Countering ransomware and other cyber threats are top priorities for the Biden administration and this new partnership with Israel will help advance this objective.