A Massachusetts city has revealed that cyber-criminals tried to hold its data ransom to the tune of more than $5m over the summer, in a sign of the growing risk to organizations from online extortionists.
The city of New Bedford was hit with the popular Ryuk strain of ransomware in early July, encrypting data on over 150 workstations, according to mayor Jon Mitchell.
Fortunately, the attack came during the July 4 holiday when systems were powered off, preventing the malware from spreading further. The city’s Management Information Systems (MIS) staff disconnected servers and shut down systems when they came in the next day.
In the end only around 4% of the city’s PCs were affected.
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Source: Infosecurity magazine