It has been revealed that a city in the United States was left with little choice but to pay a ransom after its systems were cryto-locked in an attack. The city of West Haven paid $2000 to the cyberattackers, who the U.S. Department of Homeland Security claims to have originated from outside the United States.
Tim Erlin, VP at Tripwire:
“This is a classic situation where the good of the many conflicts with the one. For any individual ransomware victim that doesn’t have adequate backups, it’s advantageous to pay the ransom, but the very best way to combat the epidemic of ransomware is to not pay the ransom.
The fact is, ransomware is one specific incident among a number that might impact your systems. The ability to recover in a reasonable amount of time by rebuilding systems and restoring backups is valuable whether your data is being held hostage or has been destroyed.”
