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By SecureWorld News Team
Mon | Sep 24, 2018 | 10:43 AM PDT

When  the Pennsylvania State Senate Democratic Caucus got hit with Ransomware in 2017, hackers demanded a 28 Bitcoin ransom to unlock or decrypt valuable files.

As that time, the hackers' demand  was the equivalent of about $30,000.

The Democratic Caucus decided not to pay the ransom, and instead, taxpayers in Pennsylvania picked up the tab for a rebuilt network. 

Now a local newspaper, TRIBLIVE, has received a copy of the bill through a "right-to-know" request.

"State records released to the Tribune-Review through a Right-to-Know request revealed taxpayers underwrote the $703,697 Microsoft charged to rebuild and enhance the system."

The TRIBLIVE article also looks at other prominent ransomware attacks where many companies and governments has opted to rebuild instead of pay a much smaller ransom. Atlanta is one example, where the latest estimates have recovery costs from the city's ransomware attack heading for $17,000,000.

But sometimes companies do pay the ransom, like this hospital CEO.

sussman-panel

All of this explains why Advisory Councils at nearly every SecureWorld cybersecurity conference put a panel discussion on Ransomware onto the agenda.

As a moderator of many of these panels, I'm hearing repeatedly about a certain ransomware trend: while the number of ransomware cases are down, the attack and the phishing that typically accompanies the attack are becoming smarter and more targeted than ever before.

Ransomware awareness and training from SecureWorld, on demand: Watch Ransomware: the good, the bad, and the truly ugly

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