{"id":222541,"date":"2026-03-09T06:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T10:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/09\/weve-seen-ransomware-cost-american-lives-heres-what-it-will-actually-take-to-stop-it\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T18:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T22:30:13","slug":"weve-seen-ransomware-cost-american-lives-heres-what-it-will-actually-take-to-stop-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/09\/weve-seen-ransomware-cost-american-lives-heres-what-it-will-actually-take-to-stop-it\/","title":{"rendered":"We’ve seen ransomware cost American lives. Here’s what it will actually take to stop it."},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve seen ransomware cost American lives. Here’s what it will actually take to stop it.<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/national-cyber-strategy-ransomware-prioritization-op-ed\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-03-09 06:05:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: cyberscoop.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Flights canceled. Emergency rooms shut down. Centuries-old companies shuttered.<\/p>\n

Ransomware and other similar cyberattacks have become so routine that even those serious human and economic consequences are often overlooked or easily forgotten.<\/p>\n

This lack of focus is dangerous.<\/p>\n

As former leaders of FBI and CISA cyber units, we\u2019ve seen cybercrime ripple through communities \u2013 disrupting critical services, destroying jobs, and sometimes costing lives. Today\u2019s ransomware numbers tell a stark story. The Department of Homeland Security reported more than 5,600 publicly-disclosed ransomware attacks worldwide in 2024, nearly half of them in the United States. The FBI found that ransomware incidents increased nearly nine percent year over year, with almost half targeting critical infrastructure. Attacks on these organizations pose the greatest threat to national security and public safety.<\/p>\n

Despite this trend, we\u2019re cautiously optimistic about the administration\u2019s new National Cyber Strategy. It focuses on protecting critical infrastructure and stopping ransomware and cybercrime\u2014threats it correctly elevates to top-tier national security threats.<\/p>\n

But success requires sustained action across government and industry. Adversaries are evolving faster than defenses: ransomware attacks now average $2.73 million per incident, driving annual losses into the billions. Attackers have compressed their operations from weeks to hours, disabling Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) tools and leaving defenders almost no time to stop an attack.<\/p>\n

Basic cyber hygiene still matters. But it\u2019s no longer sufficient. Attackers steal valid credentials, exploit known vulnerabilities, disable tools, and move laterally at machine speed, now accelerated by AI. They need a stunningly low level of technical expertise to do so, and AI tools are increasing the speed and scale of their actions.<\/p>\n

Our defenses must keep pace with evolving threats. Protecting…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve seen ransomware cost American lives. Here’s what it will actually take to stop it….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":222542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/09\/GettyImages-691204760.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[26,31],"class_list":["post-222541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-ai","tag-exploit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222541"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222541"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222543,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222541\/revisions\/222543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}