Prosecutor’s Office Pays Ransom
Posted by: Timothy Weaver on 12/07/2016 01:06 PM
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Allegheny County district attorney, Stephen Zappala Jr., confirmed that in January 2015, his office was infected with ransomware by the Avalanche group.
The Avalanche group has since been busted, but it was estimated to have infected at least 500,000 computers worldwide.
Soo Song, acting U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh, said: “The takedown of Avalanche was unprecedented in its scope, scale, reach and level of cooperation among 40 countries.”
The ransomware gained access to the prosecutor’s office network when an employee clicked on an email attachment that he thought was from a legitimate government agency.
Zappala said his detectives traced the email to Australia but didn’t identify the specific source and didn’t alert other authorities. They ended up paying the hacker $1,400 to unlock the system.
Investigators traced the infection back to Australia.
Source: First Post
The Avalanche group has since been busted, but it was estimated to have infected at least 500,000 computers worldwide.Soo Song, acting U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh, said: “The takedown of Avalanche was unprecedented in its scope, scale, reach and level of cooperation among 40 countries.”
The ransomware gained access to the prosecutor’s office network when an employee clicked on an email attachment that he thought was from a legitimate government agency.
Zappala said his detectives traced the email to Australia but didn’t identify the specific source and didn’t alert other authorities. They ended up paying the hacker $1,400 to unlock the system.
Investigators traced the infection back to Australia.
Source: First Post
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