Senators urge crack down on cryptocurrency
, Sen. Roy Blunt said, “The only way you can begin to get on top” of the “pervasive” ransomware problem is “to develop a pattern,” before launching into a critique of the anonymity provided by cryptocurrencies often used to pay ransoms.
“It took gasoline and beef for us to think this is really a serious problem,” Sen.
“We have a lot of cash requirements in our country, but we haven’t figured out in the country or in the world how to trace cryptocurrency,” Blunt said Sunday, adding: “We’ve got to do a better job here.”interview, Sen. Mark Warner , stopped short of saying ransomware payments should be outlawed but called for “more transparency” if a company does pay and said he has “a lot of questions” about cryptocurrencies now that lawmakers are “seeing . . . some of [their] dark underbelly.
by Russian hackers who unleashed a computer virus on 18,000 government and private networks worldwide. “If that attack had been an effort to shut down our system, our economy would have come to a halt.”