Pierluigi Paganini November 18, 2017

In early November, the City of Spring Hill, Tenn, suffered a ransomware attack, but it still hasn’t recovered from attack attack.

In early November, the City of Spring Hill, Tenn, suffered a ransomware attack, but government officials refused to pay a $250,000 ransom demanded by the crooks and attempted to restore the database recovering the content from backups.

The malware caused serious damages to the city, many of the ordinary activities were affected, city workers were not able to access their email accounts, and residents were  not able to make online payments or even use payment cards to pay utility bills or court fines, or conduct any other business transaction.

The situation is worse for emergency responders, the emergency dispatchers have had to log the calls, writing them by hand on a dry-erase board.

“This keeps track of our active police officers and medics out on a call,” said Director Brandi Smith about the white board.

“We write it down on paper, take the call number, put it behind them, so no matter who is working they know where the officer is, because despite all this, officer safety is still important to us,” she told News 2.

According to WKRN, the ransomware attack has shut down all mobile data terminals in the city’s police cars.

City officials announced that 911 system and city emails have been restored since Tuesday, the situation is more complicated for restoring direct deposits and online payments.

Investigators believe that the crooks haven’t stolen information from the city’s server.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – ransomware attack, cybercrime)

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