The officials of Jefferson Ohio barely escaped a ransomware attack recently. This dangerous malware not only blocks the user access to its files but also blackmails them for money in exchange of these files. Jefferson Village was not the sole victim. Two other IT companies were also affected.
Details of the Attack
The attack was first discovered by security analysts while looking to remove ransomware. They found out a computer in the Jefferson village, that was used for finance purposes, to be corrupted by the attack. Luckily, it did not prove to be costly as the village uses physical backups.
Administrator Terry Finger elaborated that after the first computer was infected, everything online was shut down in order to remove ransomware. However, this had a negative impact on the productivity too. Officials had to work without computers for days and engage in manual procedures. Finger was surprised by the difficulty that officials had in writing on paper.
Views of an Expert
Steve Schoneman of Ashtabula’s Schoneman Inc explained that the cyber criminals in such ransomware attacks often ask for payment in the form of cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin. The reasoning behind Bitcoin as a payment option is that it is difficult to trace by security agencies due to Blockchain technology. Therefore, many criminal transactions have incorporated Bitcoin as their choice of payment. Moreover, the amount charged in these ransomware cases in Bitcoin can be up to $5000.
Schoneman was not too confident about the cyber criminals’ arrests. He noticed the timings of their calls for ransom and guessed them to be from outside the US. Moreover, he is still unsure how they were able to carry out the attack in the first place.
According to Schoneman’s experience in ransomware removal, ransomware can easily harm any device connected to internet by only a simple touch or click to an email or website. He praised the Jefferson officials for their physical back up strategy and termed it as the best contingency plan in the case of a ransomware attack.
You never know when you have to deal with ransomware removal. Therefore, if you are in any way connected to internet, then you must have a physical back up in the form of external hard drives. There are also options to store your data on cloud backups like Dropbox but they are less secure as they are online too.
