Administrative Network of Miami County Hijacked by Computer Virus

The report of Miami's County Sheriff's Office reveals that Matt Watkins, Technology Director of the County, said that the computer virus known as "CryptoWall 3.0" had locked down administrative system of the 9-1-1 center. Dailycall.com published news on 8th September, 2015 stating that the program cannot be fixed unless a ransom amount is paid to the unknown sender of the computer virus.

The report reveals that the ransom amount is demanded in Bitcoin (BTC) which is a digital form of currency that is untraceable.

As per the report, Watkins said that a report to the sheriff's office was required for the auditor's office to make payment to the hacker. Watkins explained in the report that one has to pay ransom amount to remove the computer virus.

The report says that the computer virus was initially sent to the animal shelter of the county in the form of an attachment enclosed in the email. The email had gone to the communication center and it was opened by a dispatch supervisor due to which it got activated and locked down the files of the center.

Security experts comment that unfortunately it is incidents of the above type which are causing continuous growth in ransomware and ransomware attacks across the Internet. Their debate is supported by the recently released report of security firm Intel Security which says that the total number of ransomware samples increased to 58% in Q2-2015. Intel Security also says that the total number of ransomware samples grew by 127% year-on-year with company attributing the growth to fast-growing new ransomware families like CryptoWall and CTB-Locker.

The best defense against these ransomware attacks is keeping sufficient backups of all your files. Moreover, one should consider updating any obsolete software and should always maintain strong and updated anti-virus software. However, if you get infected then you may be compelled to make a choice. If you don't have good backups of your files, then you may be tempted to pay the ransom amount but it is never guaranteed that your files will be unlocked even after the payment of ransom amount to the hacker.

» SPAMfighter News - 9/22/2015