Two Florida Cities Paid $1.1 Million to Ransomware Hackers This Month

Lake City, a city in northern Florida, agreed on Monday to pay
hackers 42 Bitcoin (equivalent to $573,300 at the current value) to
unlock phone and email systems following a ransomware attack that
crippled its computer systems for two weeks.

The ransomware attack, dubbed “Triple Threat” since it combines
three different methods of attack to target network systems,
infected Lake City systems on June 10 after an employee in city
hall opened a malicious email.

Though the IT staff disconnected computers within just 10
minutes of the cyber attack starting, it was too late. The attack
locked down the city workers’ email accounts and servers.

Since the police and fire departments operate on a different
server, they were the only ones not impacted by the attack. While
other Lake City networks are currently disabled, Public Safety
services remain unaffected by this attack.

The unknown hackers contacted the city’s insurer and negotiated
ransom payment of 42 bitcoins, currently $573,300. Lake City
officials voted on Monday to pay the ransom to regain access to
their important files.

The ransom payment would be mostly covered by insurance,
although $10,000 would be incurred by taxpayers.

The ransomware attack crippled the city’s computer systems for
at least three weeks after which the Riviera Beach City Council
authorized the city’s insurer to pay a ransom of 65 Bitcoin
($897,650 at today’s value) to regain access to their locked
systems.

Federal authorities and cybersecurity experts have always
advised victims not to pay ransoms since it encourages
cybercriminals, and also there’s no guarantee of your files or
computer systems being completely restored.

Instead of paying hackers a ransom, organisations, and companies
should have robust backups of their important and required files
and data as well as educate their employees to avoid being a victim
of any cyber attack.