The Rewards for Justice (RFJ) programme of the U.S. Department of State is offering rewards for information leading to the identification or location of anyone who engages in malicious cyber activities against US critical infrastructure while acting at the direction or under the control of a foreign government in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).
The reward payments may be upto $10 million and can even include payments in cryptocurrency.
Transmission of extortion threats as part of ransomware attacks, intentional unauthorised access to a computer or exceeding authorised access and thereby obtaining information from any protected computer, and intentionally causing the transmission of a programme, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, all comes under violations of the statute.
To ensure the safety and secrecy of prospective sources, the Rewards for Justice initiative has established a Dark Web (Tor-based) tip-reporting channel. The RFJ programme is also collaborating with interagency partners to allow faster information processing as well as the possible relocation and payment of incentives to sources.
Since its establishment in 1984, the programme has paid out more than $200 million to more than 100 individuals throughout the world who supplied actionable insights that aided in the prevention of terrorism, the prosecution of terrorist leaders, and the resolution of threats to US national security.
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