[mothered]

Greetings to all,

Ransomware attacks are nothing new, but they're certainly on the Increase. Here's the latest report of how they also affect companies on a large scale, and the fact that "anyone" Is vulnerable & susceptible to exploitation.

Major U.S. cities like Atlanta and Baltimore have been crippled by cyber attacks in the last few weeks, forcing police departments to resort to pen and paper instead of computers. Hackers demanded $51,000 in Bitcoin from the city of Atlanta, but the city refused to pay.  Atlanta did pay $2.6 million in recovery costs.

All it takes is one city employee to click on a phishing email, and a central server is attacked, locking all of the data.

The data hacked can be a city's lifeline:  from tax payments and traffic lights to payroll, waste-water treatment, 911 calls and trash collection.
If it's networked, it's vulnerable.

Source.