The US Treasury Department is set to announce sanctions and similar guidance designed to disrupt the financial infrastructure that has enabled ransomware attacks. The agency is considering levying fines and other penalties on businesses that cooperate with hackers – including exchanges and mixer services that may allow cybercriminals to launder illicit funds.

As the UK and the US look to walk away from 20 years of conflict in Afghanistan, cyber security experts say abandoned embassy’s pose a small cyber risk. “Realistically, any cybersecurity impacts from the rapid evacuation are minimal to non-existent,” says Jake Williams, a former member of the U.S. National Security Agency’s elite hacking team.

Ransomware gangs are plundering companies in Viking like raids, say Britain’s former top cyber spy. Ciaran Martin, the former chief executive of Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, said: “We should start from the presumption that large scale transfers of wealth to Russian hackers should not be allowed.”

US-based legal giant Campbell Conroy & O’Neil that serves Fortune 500 firms, including Apple and Pfizer, is continuing its investigation on a ransomware attack that resulted in unauthorized access to certain client data.

Ukrainian police have arrested members of a notorious ransomware gang that recently targeted American universities. The Ukraine National Police said it had worked with Interpol and the US and South Korean authorities to charge six members of the Ukraine-based Cl0p hacker group who are allegedly responsible for a half billion-dollar cyber crimewave.

The hacking gang behind the Colonial Pipeline attack has started to point the finger at a rival gang – as the FBI launch a major investigation.

Facial recognition should be banned in Europe because of its “deep and non-democratic intrusion” into people’s private lives says the the EU’s privacy watchdog, the European Data Protection Supervisor, (EDPS).

The US Justice Department is creating a task force to tackle the growing threat of ransomware and extortion schemes targeting school districts.

Legal chiefs are increasingly being tasked with maintaining their organizations’ data protection and cybersecurity in the wake of high profile breaches and growing privacy legislation, according to an Association of Corporate Counsel report released Tuesday.

With one paw the Russian bear offers a digital truce, an online olive branch to curtail their agents’ pernicious attacks on America’s cyber infrastructure in their cyber-warfare.