(TNS) — It was like a sudden punch in the gut, eliciting the feeling that things were about to get much worse before they would get better.
“An employee opened an email and introduced a virus into the system, and from there it spread like wildfire and just took over,” Taos, N.M., Municipal Schools Superintendent Lillian Torrez said, referring to the ransomware attack that shut down the district’s computer system.
The attack in February 2019 was costly in time and money.
“It was a wakeup call,” Torrez said. “We don’t think this can happen to us. It’s just hard to believe, and when it does happen, you get this sinking feeling because you don’t want to believe it.”
Torrez is not alone. Two other school districts, one university, one New Mexico city, one county and one state government agency have collectively spent millions of dollars to regain control of their computer systems after employees unknowingly opened emails containing an encrypted code that effectively shut them out of their systems.
An alert or ransom note is usually displayed on monitors, telling victims how much the ransom is and how to pay it in order to access a digital key, or code, that returns control of the computer system to the victims.
The ransomware attacks occurred between January 2018 and February 2020.
The New Mexico victims were not targeted because they were perceived to have an abundance of cash; rather, they were the victims of a practice called “phishing,” in which hackers send out a blanket posting of hundreds or thousands of emails, explained Mary Adkins, supervisory special agent of the cyber squad in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Albuquerque field office.
“They’re going after school districts, ..
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