bugtraq - [Newsletter/Marketing] [ISN] Augusta cyber-attacker sought more than $100,000 in ransom

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Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.21.1904300729120.10941@ip-172-30-0-239.ec2.internal>
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2019 07:29:25 +0000 (UTC)
From: InfoSec News <alerts@...osecnews.org>
To: isn@...ts.infosecnews.org
Subject: [Newsletter/Marketing] [ISN] Augusta cyber-attacker sought more
 than $100,000 in ransom

https://www.centralmaine.com/2019/04/28/augusta-cyber-attacker-sought-more-than-100k-in-ransom/

By Keith Edwards
Kennebec Journal
April 28, 2019

AUGUSTA -- The apparent, and still unknown, source of a cyberattack that shut 
down the city's computer network and forced the closure of Augusta City Center 
for two days sought a ransom payment of more than $100,000 to unlock the frozen 
system.

Instead of paying the ransom, city officials - who as soon as they knew an 
attack was underway, literally pulled wires from devices as fast as they could 
to prevent the malicious software from spreading further through the system - 
decided they had the necessary data backed up, erased the city's servers and 
set about restoring them.

City Manager William Bridgeo told city councilors Thursday that the attack was 
ransomware - software from a creator who seeks to get them to pay up to have it 
removed from their systems - and included an offer to unlock the system if 
Augusta paid a ransom "in the six figures."

"We did not pay the ransom," Bridgeo said. "If the ransom was $250,000, I was 
committed to paying $500,000 to fighting it."

Fred Kahl, director of information technology, said if the city paid the ransom 
it may not have even fixed the problem.

[...]

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