Hackers strike another small Florida City demanding hefty ransoms.
This title highlights the complex difficulties associated with Municipal and City Utility computer systems and the Hackers who are compromising Florida Utilities in a very big and expensive way. Everyone in the Utility Industry has heard about the attacks that some of the utilities have encountered and the very high ransom payments that have been paid out. This is not a passing fad and it will escalate now that the copycat hackers are getting into this lucrative game. The fact that a few of the cities have agreed to pay this ransom tells us that this lucrative business will flourish and unless your city managers become trained and made aware of this, and everyone takes it seriously by educating and training employees, we will find it happening much more frequently. Let's face the fact: its easy money for perpetrators and it is very unlikely that they will ever be caught. Quite frankly these hackers can be anywhere in the world and they operate in secrecy.
Most companies are ill-prepared for the ransomware threat. According to a study by Ponemon Institute published in April of 2016, 56% of companies surveyed said they were not ready to fend off ransomware attacks while only 38% said that they have a strategy to deal with the destructive software.
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