The latest wave of ransomware attacks hitting the United States and globally portends a difficult battle against hackers, even as government and the private sector ramp up defenses. "Ransomware is hitting epidemic proportions and business as usual isn't going to cut it," said Frank Cilluffo, director of Auburn University's McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security. "We probably need to rethink what critical infrastructure is," Lewis said, suggesting that the label be used for public safety and national security. Lewis said one lesson from the recent pipeline attack was panic buying of gasoline, which made the situation worse. Making cryptocurrency transactions easier to trace could aid the fight against ransomware by curbing anonymous transactions, some analysts say.
