A ransomware was able to disable laptops of the Georgia Department of Public Safety (DPS). These laptops were installed in police vehicles.
In practice, ransomware does not directly attack the laptops . It first infects the back-end of the department itself, causing the computers to disconnect and lose access to critical police information.
The ransomware was installed last Friday. It was detected when a police officer saw a strange message on the screen . The virus spread to all systems rapidly.
Obviously the immediate solution was to automatically shut down all police department systems, which however had an impact on three Georgia police departments : Georgia State Patrol, Georgia Capitol Police, and Georgia Motor Carrier Compliance Division
The officers treated this outage like any other, whether for maintenance or a technical problem. So when they need any information, they use car radios or work phones to communicate.
Unfortunately, this is not the only case of attack that the state of Georgia has suffered. Already last month, the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) and the Lawrenceville Police Department were also hit by ransomware.
When asked, Barracuda Networks CTO Fleming Shi said that it is not just a Georgia problem, but that such attacks can happen anywhere in the U.S. Other states are also frequently affected and will continue to be affected as long as they give in and pay the ransoms demanded.
Shi also said that this is a national problem because America has not taken the necessary measures to protect citizens.
As a result, Georgia DSP officials will need to find out if the ransomware attack has affected records and active investigations, which is something ransomware infections often do. It’s not uncommon for police departments to lose ten months of investigations, or even years, like the Cockrell Hill Police Department in Texas, which lost nearly eight years of investigations, evidence, and data due to ransomware.
If DSP had not taken the precaution of creating backups ,the research results would have been lost forever.
