The Senate’s top Democrat called on the Department of Homeland Security Friday to work closely with state and local governments to defend against artificial intelligence-strengthened hacks. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to make sure state, local, tribal and territorial (SLTT) governments aren’t left behind as AI models advance, posing new hacking threats.

“There is a race between cybersecurity defenders and AI-enabled hacking — and there’s no time to waste,” Schumer wrote.

“While the White House has reportedly begun hosting meetings about its internal security priorities following these frontier AI cyber breakthroughs, it is glaringly obvious that the Department of Homeland Security needs an updated plan for coordinating these efforts with [state, local, tribal and territorial] governments and implementing procedures to reduce the risk of disruptive cyberattacks enabled by frontier AI,” he stated.

Schumer said he was worried about the capabilities of DHS and its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to carry out that coordination, given federal funding cuts to the Multistate Information Sharing and Analysis Center, and the lack of a Senate-confirmed CISA director for the duration of the second Trump administration.

Schumer wants a plan from DHS by July 1 on coordinating with state and local governments on a range of questions, such as how to identify top AI talent, carry out rapid patching and conduct risk assessments.

“AI is changing the cyber battlefield fast — and we cannot let hackers get there first,” Schumer said in comments accompanying the letter. “Hospitals, power grids, water systems, schools, elections, and emergency services cannot be left exposed while criminal gangs and state-backed hackers race to exploit new AI tools. DHS must immediately help states and localities find and fix vulnerabilities before Americans are hit with outages, disruptions, and attacks that could put lives and livelihoods at risk.”

CISA is using AI to help on the defensive side internally, agency officials recently said.

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Lawmakers at a hearing Tuesday explored ways to beef up punishments for ransomware attacks against hospitals, possibly by labeling them as more severe crimes.

One proposal floated at the House Homeland Security Committee hearing, to treat ransomware attacks as terrorism, is an idea Congress has flirted with before. Another would be to press prosecutors to pursue homicide charges in attacks on hospitals where death resulted — something German authorities also once pondered.

A former top FBI cyber official, Cynthia Kaiser, put forward both ideas at the hearing, a joint meeting of the subcommittees on Border Security and Enforcement and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection on cybercrime, drawing questions and interest from members.

“I believe there are no penalties too severe for individuals that would target our health care system,” said Mississippi Rep. Michael Guest, chair of the border subcommittee, whose home state of Mississippi’s health care clinics closed following a February ransomware attack.

The suggestions stem from a growing focus by ransomware attackers on the health care sector, with incidents doubling from 238 in 2024 to 460 in 2025 according to FBI statistics, making it the top targeted sector.

Kaiser, now senior vice of the Halcyon ransomware research center, said terrorism designations from the State, Treasury and Justice departments could lead to further sanctions, restricted travel and other punishments. Justice Department guidance on homicide charges could clarify its authorities, she said.

“It sounds like the language is there, it just has not been applied in these circumstances,” said Rep. Lou Correa of California, the top Democrat on Guest’s subpanel.

The notion of more closely entwining cyberattacks and terrorism is something both Congress and the executive branch have examined recently.

The fiscal 2025 Senate intelligence authorization bill would have directly linked ransomware to terrorism, although the final version of the bill that became law was less explicit than the original Senate language. The Treasury Department last month asked for public feedback on changing a terrorism risk insurance program to address cyber-related losses.

A University of Minnesota study from 2023 estimated that hospital ransomware attacks were responsible for dozens of deaths of Medicare patients. German authorities in 2020 opened a negligent homicide investigation following a death in the aftermath of a ransomware attack, but ultimately decided against charges.

The Trump administration’s national cyber strategy advocates for taking a more offensive approach to hackers. It released an executive order on cybercrime and fraud the same day it published the strategy. Kaiser said the proposals are in line with those approaches.

Hackers know their attacks could end lives, she said. “They have simply decided these deaths are someone else’s problem,” Kaiser said.

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Cybercrime remains a booming business. 

Annual cybercrime losses amounted to almost $20.9 billion last year, reflecting a 26% increase from 2024, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) said in its annual report Tuesday.

The comprehensive study exposes a worsening digital crime environment that is driving financial losses, with momentum moving in the wrong direction and compounding at an alarming rate. Annual cybercrime losses have jumped almost 400% from $4.2 billion in 2020, and cumulative losses in that five-year period surpassed $71.3 billion.

The FBI’s IC3, which formed as the country’s central hub for cybercrime reporting in 2000, is busier than ever. “We now average almost 3,000 complaints per day,” Jose Perez, the FBI’s operations director for its criminal and cyber branch, wrote in the report. 

The annual internet crime report highlights growing and sustaining trends. Yet, the scope of the study is limited and relies entirely on cybercrime incidents submitted to the FBI. 

The full impact of cybercrime remains murky, as an unknown number of victims suffer in the shadows and never report the crimes they endure.

The FBI received more than 1 million complaints last year, with victims aged over 60 reporting the largest amount of crimes that also resulted in the greatest amount of total losses by age group. Victims at least 60 years old filed 201,000 complaints with losses totaling nearly $7.75 billion, or about 37% of all cybercrime-related losses last year.

Investment-related fraud remained the largest component of cybercrime losses in 2025, reaching almost $8.65 billion. Business email compromise took the No. 2 spot with almost $3.05 billion in losses, followed by tech support scams at more than $2.1 billion. 

Cryptocurrency was the primary conduit for fraud linked to investment and tech support scams last year, while wire transfers composed the bulk of fraud resulting from business email compromise, according to the report.

Phishing was the most commonly reported type of cybercrime last year, followed by extortion, investment scams and personal data breaches. The FBI tallied losses amounting to $122.5 million from extortion and $32.3 million from ransomware last year.

The FBI also received more than 75,000 reports of sextortion last year, including more than 5,700 submissions that were referred to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The top five cyber threats reported to IC3 in 2025 included data breaches at 39%, ransomware at 36%, SIM swapping at 10%, malware at 9% and botnets at 7%. 

The FBI received more than 3,600 complaints reporting ransomware last year. The five most reported variants included Akira, Qilin, INC, BianLian and Play.

Each of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors reported ransomware attacks last year, and the most heavily targeted included health care, manufacturing, financial services, government and IT.

The IC3 primarily receives complaints from U.S. residents and businesses, but it also received complaints from more than 200 countries last year, which accounted for nearly $1.6 billion in total losses. 

While losses and the sheer amount of cybercrime continued to climb last year, “the FBI continues to disrupt and deter malicious cyber actors — and shift the cost from victims to our adversaries,” Perez wrote in the report.

“It has never been more important to be diligent with your cybersecurity, social media footprint, and electronic interactions,” he added. “Cyber threats and cyber-enabled crime will continue to evolve as the world embraces emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.”

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