Another city in the United States decided to pay hackers a ransom worth nearly $500,000

After the city of Riviera City, Florida, became the first city to agree to pay a ransom up to $600,000 to hackers, another city in Florida, Lake City announced the same response. Lake City is located in the northern part of Florida and has a population of 65,000. In this hacking, various municipal tasks have been suspended for two weeks. In this municipal emergency meeting on Monday, a vote was made to pay 42 bitcoins, worth nearly $500,000 in ransom.

“Ransomware Yellow”by Infosec Images is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Lake City was attacked by ransomware on June 10 this year, which the city called “Triple Threat.” Although the city’s IT staff disconnected the affected system within ten minutes of the discovery of the attack, almost all computer systems in the municipality were infected with ransomware in addition to the police and firefighting parts running in a separate network.

A week after the infection, Lake City received a ransom request and negotiated with the insurance provider League of Cities to confirm the ransom of 42 bitcoins. According to local media reports, the city official agreed to pay the ransom request on Monday and paid the insurance company on June 25. Based on the price at which Bitcoin is paid, the estimated payment value is between $480,000 and $500,000. The city’s IT staff is now working to recover its data after receiving the decryption key.

Source: ZDNet