American Town Pays Twice Ransom To Ransomware

A town in the US state of New York last year twice in a short time become a victim of ransomware. And twice it was decided to pay the ransom. It went together to the tune of $ 800. The infections were carried out in Ilion, which consists of 8,000 inhabitants.

The malware was spreading in both cases via e-mail attachments and encrypted both payroll and accounting systems, as the mayor opposite let NBC know. The infections, which occurred in January and May, were reported ( pdf ) by the Office of the State Comptroller. "These incidents are a wake-up call for local governments in the state," as late Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli know. "Although the amount of money was low and no vital information was leaked, this attack does show that lack of standard IT security taxpayers expense can hunt and functioning of cities and school districts can disrupt."

Canada

The problem of ransomware plays not only in the United States. Recently, also various systems of two Canadian towns hit by ransomware. When the infection in Mahone Bay were encrypted files back to 2007. An officer received an email supposedly a resume. The enclosed zip file appeared to be the CryptoWall-ransomware. Since the malware no important data encrypted was not proceeded to pay.

In the case of the infection in the Canadian Bridgewater would even talk of two ransomware specimens have been, namely CryptoWall and Crypto Locker, let the Chief Administrative Officer of the city across from CBC News to know. Also in this case would no important files are encrypted there and the ransom was not paid. To prevent a new infection is now controlled security against ransomware and henceforth be made ​​offline backups.