Valdez, Alaska paid off ransomware hackers

StateScoop: Officials in Valdez, Alaska, admitted earlier this month that they paid off hackers to regain access to municipal computer systems that were crippled in July by a ransomware attack. The city of just 4,000 gave its attackers four bitcoins, worth $26,624 at the time of the payment, in exchange for a decryption key that unlocked its systems that had been affected by the cyberattack.

In a press release posted Nov. 13 to Valdez’s Facebook page, City Manager Elke Doom said she approved the payment after consulting with a cybersecurity firm in Virginia, which negotiated with the hackers as a third party. She didn’t name the company that assisted the town.

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