A Ransomware attack on critical infrastructure in a country, such as the United States of America, would significantly impact on that country’s economy. The effects are felt right away and can be felt in every facet of that country’s economy. An attack would shut down vital services, reduce productivity of the country’s workforce, cost jobs and damage financial portfolios. Such damages would render the nation unable to recover from the cyber crime. As a result, the United States of America would be at greater risk from cyber crime than ever before.
One of the major reasons that cyber crime has become such a serious issue for the United States of America is due to the fact that most of our country’s infrastructure was built to withstand cyber attacks. While it may have been constructed to withstand specific attacks, it is not designed to defend against all potential attacks. If it cannot defend itself, then how will it defend against hackers who know what to do to exploit the vulnerabilities within it? The same goes for our banking systems which have been found to be vulnerable to hackers.
As a nation, the Department of Homeland Security takes cyber threats seriously. In fact, it holds the nation’s cyber criminals accountable with stiff penalties for those who are found guilty of cyber crimes. Recently, there have been new laws passed in order to make cyber-criminals who are found to have compromised infrastructure pay a heavy price. This is a great step in protecting our country’s critical infrastructure from cyber criminals.
Unfortunately, many in the United States of America do not seem to be concerned about protecting their country’s infrastructure. We have a legal system based upon the idea of robbery or burglary. While the government may apprehend cyber criminals, it does not appear that it is willing to pursue them through the system. Some see it as a lack of priorities. It would seem that those who are most worried about cyber crime might actually be the cyber criminals themselves.
It would seem that if we cannot protect our vital infrastructure from cyber criminals, then we might as well just allow cyber criminals to continue their illegal activities. That would make sense right? Why would anyone in his right mind want to put his country at risk by allowing cyber criminals to compromise its cyber infrastructure? Would a cyber criminal be happy to breach the cyber firewall of a nation and go free to cause great damage? Probably not. If we cannot protect our country’s infrastructure, then why would anyone want to.
It appears that we are letting cyber criminals write the rules for how our nation’s critical infrastructure should be protected. How unfortunate, because our government is probably abysmal at its job in making sure that our critical infrastructures are kept secure. If we cannot protect our infrastructure from cyber criminals, then what can we do to prevent them? I am afraid that in the next decade, we will probably have to look to countries like China to provide our cyber protection. Please consider all this.