A Florida city's council voted to pay a ransom of $600,000 in Bitcoin to hackers that targeted its computer systems — and the payout is a sign of how unprepared much of the US is to deal with a coming wave of cyber attacks.
The city council of Riviera Beach, 50 miles north of Fort Lauderdale, voted on Monday to meet the demands of their hackers in the hope of getting back their compromised data, CBS News reported.
According to The Palm Beach Post, the attack began on May 29, when a employee from the police department opened an email attachment that contained malware. The software quickly spread through the city's computer systems, affecting its email system and even the 911 dispatch operations.
The New York Times reported that the hackers demanded their ransom in bitcoin. The paper noted that there is no guarantee that hackers will honor their end of the deal after getting the money. CBS reported that the council already voted to spend $1 million on new computers after the attack.
Also at CNN.
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @07:18PM (2 children)
A guy in San Diego working for the port district told me all he does at work is look at porn on their work computer. You can't get rid of stupid, especially lazy civil service stupid.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Nuke on Thursday June 20 2019, @07:30PM
So are you saying that Riviera Beach's data is likely to be all porn? Must be hot stuff to pay $600.000 to get it back.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 20 2019, @07:31PM
What if the files viewed on that "worker's" computer were lost to ransom ware?
Then would it be worth $600 K (or less) to prevent that from happening?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.