(CNN) In the wake of the Colonial Pipeline and JBS ransomware attacks in recent months, the head of the nation's leading cybersecurity agency says these events are a harbinger of what's to come on the cyber front and there needs to be a greater focus on shoring up the defenses of America's most important assets. "Both of those incidents highlight the actual real world consequences of cyber incidents, targeting our critical infrastructure. And while today those attacks have impacted Americans at the gas pump and at the supermarkets, our concern is where could this go next," Brandon Wales, the current acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told CNN's Pamela Brown in an interview. "We are concerned about where this could go in the future," Wales said. Both JBS and Colonial Pipeline paid ransoms to their criminals to unlock their systems, but Wales warned about the danger of such moves for the country as a whole.

Source: CNN June 27, 2021 22:41 UTC