Florida City Agrees To Astonishing $600,000 Ransom Payout (Updated)

By Kate O'Flaherty for Forbes
Thursday, June 27, 2019

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Another Florida city has decided to pay a ransom to hackers to regain control over computer systems. The mayor of Lake City told CBS 47 Action News Jax on Tuesday that the small city in northern Florida would give hackers $460,000 to hand back control of email and other servers seized two weeks ago. Added to the $600,000 Riviera Beach City Council payment, the total ransom payout for the two Florida cities has now hit $1 million in just over a week.

Ilia Kolochenko, founder and CEO of web security company ImmuniWeb says: “With such lucrative and easy stakes on the table, cybercriminals will now willingly invest to prepare sophisticated, hardly-detectable and well-targeted campaigns. Worse still, such cybercrimes are almost uninvestigable due to technical issues and payments in cryptocurrency. It’s a paradise for black hats.

Kolochenko advises potential victims to start seeking additional funding to “protect themselves without delay.” Read Full Article