No More Ransom Says Yonkers
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The City of Yonkers has refused to pay the ransom after ransomware attackers demanded a ransom of $10 million to restore data. Government employees at the City of Yonkers were restricted from accessing their laptops or computers after the city suffered a computer incursion by ransomware attackers. Employees were told to restore as much data as possible manually from backups.
The ransomware outbreak
In 2019, the City of Baltimore was crippled for more than two weeks before the government’s systems were restored, in a delay that cost the city more than $18 million. Although Baltimore followed the instructions given by cyber security experts and the FBI to not pay the ransom, many people questioned the city’s strategy, given the extent of the damage.
If we paid the ransom, there is no guarantee can or will unlock our system. There’s no way of tracking the payment or even being able to confirm who we are paying the money to. Because of the way they requested payment, there’s no way of knowing if they are leaving other malware on our system to hold us for ransom again in the future.
No more ransom payments
When three more local governments were attacked within a space of few months, it sparked a meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors. The meeting of US mayors resulted in a unanimous decision to stop paying ransom demands.
Paying ransomware attackers encourages continued attacks on other government systems, as perpetrators financially benefit. The United States Conference of Mayors has a vested interest in de-incentivizing these attacks to prevent further harm. Conference concluded.
In City of Yonkers case, the city confirmed that the virus was quarantined on the network, no ransom was paid and the Department of Homeland Security was notified.
