Florida city victim of ransomware attack decides paying the hackers
In Florida, a particular city has been hit hard with crypto ransomware assaults which have made it to adjust by force. The City Council of Riviera Beach unanimously agreed for paying 65 SegWitCoins (bitcoin) that in dollars amounts to 633K at prevailing prices towards a conclusion of an assault targeted on the city's services.
According to the officials, the Riviera Beach City Council put their votes in agreement, current week, for making payment of the ransom in the hacking incident. The suburb of Palm Beach believes it had no other alternative to restore its databases that had been encrypted during the ransomware attack. The council reportedly, at first jointly agreed to expend nearly USD1m for fresh hardware and PCs following the hackers compromising Riviera Beach's systems 3 weeks back. www.cisomag.com posted the statement, June 21, 2019.
The officials further stated that the assault took place 29th May, 2019 after an employee of the police department clicked to view an e-mail which carried malware. The malicious software fast spread onto the government IT computers of Riviera Beach resulting in the systems being taken offline.
The Florida city assault takes place after one ransomware assault against Baltimore city that dismissed paying its hackers 13 BTC (at that time equivalent to some USD100K). However, the assault is set to eventually cost USD18m-or-more, including items such as deferred/lost income because of payments flowing slowly to hackers. www.nakedsecurity.sophos.com posted this, June 21, 2019.
With the purpose to conduct an investigation, the city has called in Department of Homeland Security, Secret Service and FBI. While the investigators wouldn't suggest anything regarding the ransom payment, Riviera Beach, however, decided towards making the payment to the attackers hoping it would lead to a conclusion of their demands while the systems could be unlocked. According to KaShamba Miller-Anderson Chairwoman of Riviera Beach Council, it was risky there being just 2 options: Either pay the ransom or ignore it. www.coingeek.com posted this, June 21, 2019.
Security specialists admonish that the decision of Riviera Beach might work out one difficult start for other cities since hackers can extract from them ransoms once they successfully threaten them.
» SPAMfighter News - 6/26/2019 |
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