Ride the Lightning

Pennsylvania Prosecutor’s Office Pays Ransom After Ransomware Attack

December 13, 2016

Your tax dollars at work. The Allegheny County state prosecutor's office acknowledged paying attackers $1,400 in bitcoin to get its encrypted data unencrypted. According to the DarkReading story, the office was hit by the 'Avalanche' ransomware – along with hundreds of thousands of victims.

The malware has been active since 2009 and was estimated to infect as many as 500,000 devices worldwide on a daily basis.

An employee at the office, in January 2015, opened a link in an e-mail (where have we heard this story before?) that led to the ransomware infection. The user opened the link believing that it appeared to go back to a legitimate government agency.

It does make one wonder how many other government offices have paid the piper . .. .

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