Lake City Florida Pays $500K Ransom
Lake City is the second Florida city this month to pay hackers the ransom. The two Florida cities are only the latest in a string of ransomware attacks targeting state and local city governments. Experts warn that the cities paying the ransom could only encourage hackers, incentivizing them to launch even more attacks against municipalities. The Florida municipality, Lake City, has a population of 12,046 and is located in northern Florida. Lake City officials voted on Monday to pay the hackers 42 Bitcoin, which is about $460,000, which would be mostly covered by insurance. The incidents in Atlanta, Baltimore and now Florida show that it's not if but but when it's going to happen. These attacks seem to be financially motivated. The FBI recommends that ransomware victims not pay however, it's very difficult.
The initial infection occurred two weeks ago, after an employee in city hall opened a malicious email. The attack locked down the city's email and servers. The police and fire departments were the only ones not affected, as they operate on a different server. Further technical details about the malware that then infected the network is not known. While insurance would cover the majority of the ransom payment, $10,000 would need to be collected from taxpayers.
The city is working to recover the data after receiving a decryption key as of Thursday. Last week Riviera Beach, a city in Florida with a population of 35,000, paid a ransom of 65 Bitcoin, about $600,000 in exchange for unlocking computers. Like Lake City, Riviera Beach was hit by the ransomware attack May 29 after a city employee clicked on a malicious link in an email.
Ransomware attacks are increasingly targeting state and local cities, according to experts. The Florida cities are only the latest in a string of costly ransomware attacks targeting city governments. In 2018, several Atlanta city systems were crippled after a ransomware attack extorted the municipality for $51,000. And the city of Baltimore is another recent victim of ransomware, which hit in May and halted some city services like water bills, permits and more, demanding a $76,000 ransom.
In fact, a recent report by Recorded Future threat intel analyst Allan Liska found that it does appear ransomware attacks on state and local governments is on the rise. While digging through local media reports, Liska found that in 2017, 38 ransomware attacks were reported, while in 2018, that number jumped to 53. And in the first four months of 2019, there have already been 22 reported attacks so far. Ransomware attacks on state and local governments were already on the rise in 2019, but the last month has seen an acceleration in both reported and unreported attacks.