The Georgia Courts Administration Office is the latest government entity to fall victim to ransomware in recent months. The attack, which was discovered Saturday, caused the office to temporarily shut down its network. A spokesperson for the court administration office said the infected systems do not contain any personal information about Georgia residents, adding that the agency is working hard “to ensure that our systems remain secure and are back up and running as soon as possible.”
The Georgian courts, however, are not the only government organization to fall victim to an attack by would-be hackers recently, and it is very likely that others will follow.
In recent months, several ransomware attacks on local governments have received extensive media coverage, including incidents in Baltimore and the recent series of attacks in Florida. According to the FBI , “there has been an increase in targeted ransomware attacks,” but there is not enough evidence to suggest that one industry or sector is more frequently targeted than another. David Kennedy of TrustedSec believes that “there is an increase in the number of ransomware campaigns being discovered, but they are not specifically targeting municipalities, state or federal agencies.”
