Tewksbury Police Pay $500 Ransom After Cybercriminals Encrypt Department’s Data
The Tewksbury Police Department was forced to pay $500 to digital thieves who encrypted the department’s data using ransomware, according to a Boston Globe report.
The cybercriminals encrypted the department’s arrest and incident records and then sent a message saying the data could be decrypted for $500. After folks from federal and state law enforcement agencies, as well as two private Internet security firms, failed to retrieve the information over a period of five days, the police department paid the ransom using the digital currency bitcoin, at the hackers’ request, because it’s more difficult to trace.
Criminals use ransomware programs to send e-mail messages with a hyperlink that, when clicked, infects the recipient’s computer. The program is then able to encrypt the victim’s data and make it inaccessible without a key.
Read the full story from the Boston Globe.
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