The bottom line is ransomware has gone from an economic nuisance, which is how it was perceived back in 2013 and 2014, to a national security threat and a public health and safety threat, it is no longer just a sideline cybercrime problem, but something that requires a whole of government approach to deal with. That's why it is good that the administration is putting out a strategy focused on ransomware — that is what it is going to take to knock this problem back.

Michael Daniel

We should be taking this pretty seriously. by Michael Daniel

We should be taking this pretty seriously.

DHS is at the table in the process I'm running. by Michael Daniel

DHS is at the table in the process I'm running.

Obviously there have been tensions, i think that's the kind of thing that the only way you get at it is continue to have a dialogue and continue to engage.

The summit is really an opportunity for us to take stock of where we've been and where we need to go, since we are very much at an inflection point in terms of ensuring we can continue to have cyber space be a strategic for the United States.

That's part of the reason we're coming out here. by Michael Daniel

That's part of the reason we're coming out here.

Obviously there have been tensions, but I think that's the kind of thing where the only way to get at that is to continue to have dialogue and to continue to engage, and the president has been committed to that.

We believe that by clearly defining what makes for a good ISAO, that will make tying liability protection to sectoral organizations easier and more accessible to the public and to privacy and civil liberties advocates.

Obviously it's quite concerning that we would have yet another intrusion of this size, it's particularly disturbing especially when it hits that many people.

Prohibiting payments immediately is not a workable strategy because it will impose too many costs on innocent victims, if you want to set that as a policy goal, you need to lay down steps first and you need much more information.

Before imposing any kind of blanket ban, we want to encourage a lot more information sharing with the government.

Its primary utility would be in developing potential targets for approach by intelligence operatives or feeding artificial intelligence [and] machine learning tools.