In response to the news that a local police department in Swansea, Massachusetts, has paid the cyber crooks behind the CryptoLocker ransomware attack to decrypt files locked up by the malware on police computer systems, Gavin Millard, EMEA Technical Director at Tripwire has the following comments:
“With the FBI and the UK National Crime Agency stating that this type of activity should not be encouraged by paying the ransom, it is surprising to see that the local police department paying to regain access to the files. What is more concerning though, is the apparent lack of security and backup procedures on systems that could be storing critical and highly confidential documents.
Keep all your files backed up and safe either using an on-premise or cloud solution, use anti virus and keep everything up to date to minimise the risk of being infected with this annoying and costly malware.”
What are your thoughts on the US local police department paying the CryptoLocker ransom?