Ransomware attack effects on Atlanta’s state government have been reported as much worse than it seemed at first glance.
To start with, more than 30% apps-termed mission critical are yet to be brought online. Reuter’s reports that the city police have lost more than 10 years of dash cam footage in the attack as 6 of its 77 computers were locked down by the ransomware.
The Atlanta government has made it official yesterday that another $9.5 million is still required to recover files from the attack. This is separate from the $2 million spending on the recovery done in April this year.
Thus, the latest estimate is said to sharply increase the $35 million IT budget suggested by Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms early this year.
Note- On March 22nd, 2018, a SamSam ransomware attack variant locked down almost 71 of the 77 computers used by various public departments in the Atlanta state. This includes data related to Atlanta Police and Court departments. The hackers who spread the ransomware demanded $51,000 worth of Bitcoins for the release of encrypted city data.
Howard Shook, Chair of the Finance Committee said that costs in recovering the whole data could rise further as the third party companies doing the recovery are charging a lot for every GB they are decrypting.
Thus, if we take all the predicted financial data into account, the IT budget proposal introduced by Atlanta City Council Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms might strictly prove insufficient for this year.
