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What the West did after the Ryanair diversion
Summary
A look back at the response to Belarus's diversion of Ryanair Flight 4978, alongside a ransomware disclosure with Russian links, as reported around 27 May 2021.
What had the West done by 27 May 2021 in answer to Belarus's diversion of a Ryanair flight? Within days, both the European Union and NATO had responded.
On 23 May 2021, NATO demanded an international investigation into Belarus's diversion of Ryanair Flight 4978. The next day, 24 May, the European Union went further. It banned all Belarusian airlines from using its airports and airspace in response to what it called a hijacking, and it placed sanctions on officials believed to have been involved in the operation.
A separate cyber story
A different disclosure surfaced in the same days. On 21 May 2021, CNA Financial, the seventh-largest commercial insurer in the United States, revealed that it had been hit by a ransomware attack in March 2021. The company said it had paid $40 million to a group named Phoenix two weeks after company data was stolen and its officials were locked out of their network.
The attackers used malware called Phoenix Locker, a variant of ransomware dubbed Hades. According to cybersecurity experts, Hades was created by a Russian cybercrime syndicate known as Evil Corp.
In December 2019, the US Treasury Department had announced sanctions on 17 individuals and six entities linked to Evil Corp. That designation made it illegal for a US company to knowingly pay a ransom to Evil Corp.
The two stories were separate, but both were being reported in the same week, one dominated by sanctions and international demands for accountability.
