{"id":55435,"date":"2016-12-01T22:24:49","date_gmt":"2016-12-01T22:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/?p=55435"},"modified":"2016-12-01T22:24:49","modified_gmt":"2016-12-01T22:24:49","slug":"howard-county-crippled-ransomware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pcmatic.com\/blog\/howard-county-crippled-ransomware\/","title":{"rendered":"Howard County Crippled by Ransomware"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two separate malicious emails were sent to Howard County employees in November. \u00a0However, it was not the emails that were dangerous, but the “tracking slips” they downloaded within the malicious emails that led to a massive ransomware infection. \u00a0The Kokomo Perspective<\/a> reported several employees were guilty of downloading these malicious attachments. \u00a0Post infection, over 33,000 files were left encrypted. \u00a0The county was able to restore their files with the backups they had available; however this of course took time.<\/p>\n

Moving forward, Howard County will begin training their employees on cyber security threats, as well as boosting their current security software solution.<\/p>\n

The ransomware variant that took down the county’s systems has not been disclosed. \u00a0The amount of the ransom demand was also not reported.<\/p>\n

To see a full list of ransomware attacks that have taken place, you can click here<\/a>. We have also created a ransomware map, see below, of the ransomware attacks that have taken place in the U.S. this year.
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