As 2019 winds to a close, the top cybersecurity story was clearly the targeted ransomware that caused major disruptions and operational and financial impacts for state and local governments and hospitals throughout the USA.
Here is a sampling of the state and local government ransomware stories from 2019:
And the overall ransomware trouble list goes on and on – and also includes hospitals and more. Here is a list of some of the top medical facilities hit by ransomware in 2019.
Some governments and hospitals paid the bad actors (criminals), others did not. Nevertheless, all of them suffered operational down time, citizen frustration for lack of services, financial impact and much more – including the political embarrassment of being a victim of cybercrime.
And the 2019 ransomware impact is actually larger than we know. Many other ransomware stories remained hidden from public eyes and are not even reported on these lists of ransomware incidents. (That is, the number of public and private ransomware cases is certainly higher than what was reported.)
Why did so many targeted cyberattacks hit counties, cities, townships, school districts, hospitals and other smaller government or non-profit entities?
Some say these organizations were ill-prepared to defend themselves. The bad guys saw this as “low-hanging fruit” when compared to attacking large banks, or taking on the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) or some (Read more...)
*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Lohrmann on Cybersecurity authored by ransomware targeted state local governments
