Over the past three years, especially following WannaCry malware, ransomware
has become one of the biggest concerns for private businesses, state, and local
government agencies. According to Homeland Security statistics, 1.5 million
ransomware attacks have occurred per year since 2016. Cybercriminals often use
creative methods to inject their malware into the target machines and use
sophisticated cryptographic techniques to hold hostage victims' files and
programs unless a certain amount of equivalent Bitcoin is paid. The return to
the cybercriminals is so high (estimated \1billionin2019)withoutanycostbecauseoftheadvancedanonymityprovidedbycryptocurrencies,especiallyBitcoin\citePaquet−Clouston2019.Giventhiscontext,thisstudyfirstdiscussesthecurrentstateofransomware,detection,andpreventionsystems.Second,weproposeaglobalransomwarecentertobettermanageourconcertedeffortsagainstcybercriminals.Thepolicyimplicationsoftheproposedstudyarediscussedintheconclusionsection.