Albany City latest victim of ransomware

According to a confirmation dated March 30 by Albany City, certain ransomware attack hit the city impacting computers of the municipal government. A ransomware attack is one wherein hackers install malware on people's PCs that gives the attacker control over the victim's files so they're encrypted and for whose decryption the victim must pay up to the attacker. The Albany assault disrupted many city services, notably among them -shelling out prints of marriage, birth and death certificates as well as applications to get permission for conducting marriages.

In a tweet, Mayor Kathy Sheehan confirmed that the City of Albany had been caught in a ransomware assault. She said officials were presently determining as to what extent the hack had spread. Meanwhile, there would be updated information provided to residents whenever it became available. After sometime Ms. Sheehan stated that it seemed from the initial probe that sensitive else personal details of city residents and government employees hadn't been compromised. Still, the city would, as precaution, provide non-chargeable credit monitoring service for each and every city employee. Finally according to Ms. Sheehan, whilst Albany residents could deposit city taxes through their credit cards, the government never stored anybody's credit card details. www.meritalk.com posted this, April 1, 2019.

Mayor Sheehan's spokesperson Brian Shea stated, March 31, that city officers had been busy all through the weekend tackling the cyber attack incident. According to him, city employees would be attending their duty like normal on 1st April. Also, the public could visit government buildings from Monday afternoon.

Evidently, prior to the Albany assault, there have been several other mid-size and small counties and cities which got victimized with a ransomware attack. During March, Jackson County of Georgia had to pay USD 400,000 for getting back control over its government PCs in the aftermath of an assault by the Ryuk ransomware. Also in March, Orange County of North Carolina stated that it managed recovering fast following one ransomware assault even though it didn't pay up. Still earlier during January, Akron, Ohio had to disconnect many city services from the Net because a ransomware infection contracted its network.

» SPAMfighter News - 4/6/2019