Twenty local government organizations in Texas have been affected by a coordinated ransomware attack, announced on Friday by the State Information Resources Department (DIR).
“Currently, the DIR, the Texas Military Department and the Cyberresponse and Security Center Operations Center teams of Texas A & M University are developing resources for the most critical legal matters”, the department said in a press release. “Other resources will be used as requested.”
Ransomware attacks are very commonly used by hackers, and are a preferred method, especially among municipal entities. Cybercriminals plant malicious code – often exploiting relatively simple and outdated electronic defense methods.
Users are then asked to pay, usually in Bitcoin, to regain access to their systems. Bitcoin is a blockchain that is nearly impossible to trace, allowing hackers to remove these complex settings from anywhere in the world once they are paid.
It is not known how much the hackers were demanding from Texas officials and which systems are currently offline.
Baltimore the case in such cases, it’s often cheaper to pay the ransom. But the city ultimately decided to spend about $18 million. The hacker was only asking for $76,000 in Bitcoin, but the FBI advised Baltimore not to pay the ransom.
In the fall, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen held a cybersecurity summit in New York, calling out the dangers of digital attacks.
At the meeting, he announced the creation of the National Risk Management Center, which will serve as a point of contact for businesses.
