{"id":234181,"date":"2026-04-21T16:26:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/21\/ex-fbi-lead-urges-homicide-charges-against-ransomware-scum-the-register\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T01:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:00:11","slug":"ex-fbi-lead-urges-homicide-charges-against-ransomware-scum-the-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/21\/ex-fbi-lead-urges-homicide-charges-against-ransomware-scum-the-register\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-FBI lead urges homicide charges against ransomware scum \u2022 The Register"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theregister.com\/2026\/04\/21\/exfbi_cyber_chief_urges_felony_charges_ransomware\/\">Ex-FBI lead urges homicide charges against ransomware scum \u2022 The Register<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theregister.com\/2026\/04\/21\/exfbi_cyber_chief_urges_felony_charges_ransomware\/\">https:\/\/www.theregister.com\/2026\/04\/21\/exfbi_cyber_chief_urges_felony_charges_ransomware\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-04-21 16:26:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.theregister.com\">www.theregister.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>If a cyberattack leads to a death, that&#8217;s murder. A former FBI cyber division chief urged the US Justice Department to consider felony homicide charges against ransomware actors when attacks on hospitals lead to patient deaths.<\/p>\n<p>In testimony before a US House of Representatives subcommittee hearing, Cynthia Kaiser, former deputy assistant director of the FBI&#8217;s cyber division, implored lawmakers to &#8220;champion&#8221; the federal government to use three existing legal authorities to go after ransomware criminals who encrypt healthcare networks and systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The gap between the severity of these crimes and the consequences that follow needs to close,&#8221; Kaiser, Halcyon Ransomware Research Center SVP, told lawmakers on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Kaiser called on the US State, Justice, and Treasury departments to evaluate terrorism designations for &#8220;ransomware actors [who] knowingly and repeatedly target hospitals.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The gap between the severity of these crimes and the consequences that follow needs to close<\/p>\n<p>She also urged federal prosecutors to evaluate homicide charges when ransomware attacks against healthcare facilities cause patient deaths. &#8220;Felony murder law does not require that a defendant pull the trigger, only that they commit a dangerous felony that results in death,&#8221; Kaiser said, citing a University of Minnesota study that documented at least 47 deaths attributable to hospital ransomware attacks between 2016 and 2021. &#8220;That number is almost certainly in the hundreds today,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, Kaiser begged Congress to fully fund and reauthorize the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program, which took a hit during the first year of Trump&#8217;s second term. The President&#8217;s 2027 budget proposal would slash CISA spending by an additional $707 million next fiscal year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;State and local governments are disproportionately targeted by ransomware, and they often lack&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theregister.com\/2026\/04\/21\/exfbi_cyber_chief_urges_felony_charges_ransomware\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ex-FBI lead urges homicide charges against ransomware scum \u2022 The Register https:\/\/www.theregister.com\/2026\/04\/21\/exfbi_cyber_chief_urges_felony_charges_ransomware\/ Publish Date: 2026-04-21&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":234182,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/regmedia.co.uk\/2026\/04\/21\/cynthia_kaiser_us_house_hearing.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-234181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234181"}],"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=234181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":234183,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234181\/revisions\/234183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}