Police in Lincoln County, Maine were forced to pay a ransom to decrypt their files. Four city police departments and a sheriff’s office share a common computer network.

The network fell victim to the Megacode ransomware, which scrambles documents and demands Bitcoins to decrypt them.

Failing to decrypt the files, the police departments decided to pay the $300 in Bitcoins.

"Paying a ransom - let's say it goes against the grain," Sheriff Todd Brackett told the Boothbay Register. "We tried to find a way around it, but in the end our IT guys and Burgess recommended just paying the ransom."

It is believed that the ransomware was downloaded in an exec. file that came in an email.

"We'll have more virus protection training where we go over how to tell if something might be a virus," Brackett said. "Sometimes, it's hard to tell, but you've got to keep an eye out for some of these documents that people [email] you. Sometimes it can be hard to tell if it contains a virus."

Normally the way to deal with a ransom is to restore the data from a backup file, but it didn't work, so the decision was made to pay the ransom.

Ransomware has gotten much worse as the theives find it easier than stealing info and trying to sell it on the dark web.

The FBI is now offering millions in reward money to catch the crooks behind some ransomware.

Source: The Register.uk.