A ransomware attack is holding Baltimore's networks hostage

[Johnson]

Baltimore city government computers were infected with ransomware Tuesday, the mayor’s office said, the second time in just over a year that hackers demanding payment disrupted the city’s technology systems....

[Flyslinger2]

Not to be contrary but because it's my nature I am going to slightly refute the title.  

Ransomeware is NOT holding Baltimore hostage. The absolutely horrific politicians of Baltimore are holding Baltimore hostage. This is small potatoes compared to what has been going on in that city for years.

And honestly. Grinding that city to a halt would be a good thing.

I am a Maryland resident who has heard daily the issues of Bmore.

[rslade]

> Johnson (Newcomer I) posted a new topic in Industry News on 05-09-2019 05:05 AM

>   Baltimore city government computers were infected with ransomware Tuesday,
> the mayor’s office said, the second time in just over a year that hackers
> demanding payment disrupted the city’s technology systems....

Backup.

I keep telling people, backup, backup, backup ...

[Flyslinger2]

Friend of mine's company was hit with RansomWare. Even the backups for the last two months were infected-cloud and on-prem.

[TXWayne]

Speaking of ongoing disasters, this is also a pretty significant one.....https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/05/whats-behind-the-wolters-kluwer-tax-outage/

[dcontesti]

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@Flyslinger2 wrote:

Friend of mine's company was hit with RansomWare. Even the backups for the last two months were infected-cloud and on-prem.

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Sorry to hear, but hopefully they have backups older than two months?  The main issue is that you never know when you got hit.  I am surprised however that more folks are not implementing protection.

MHOO

d

[denbesten]

@Johnson wrote:

... infected with ransomware ....

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@rslade wrote:

Backup.

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Offline Backup.

Also, offsite != offline and synchronization != backup.

[denbesten]

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@dcontesti wrote:
...hopefully they have backups older than two months?  ... more folks are not implementing protection.

Even worse, data retention policies shove the bar in the wrong direction.  The theory being is that backups make things discover-able and therefore ought not out-survive the data with the shortest retention period.  GDPR also risks shoving it the wrong way -- if I "erase" someone, do I need to do so on the backups or do I just toss them sooner?