Bitcoin ransomware shenanigans hit Atlanta city gov.

[just Warren]

Government is supposed to protect us and it can't even protect itself.

If they pay, they'll just get hit again and again because there is little chance that they'll develop the necessary discipline among their employees to prevent attacks. 

[lee n. field]

Well, I guess they get to find out how good their backup is.

[just Warren]

Not so good, apparently.

It might be time to go back to file rooms and pneumatic tube systems. Physical In/Out trays, secretarial and typist pools, gal Fridays, go-fers, microfiche machines and flesh and blood company librarians.

[Hawkmoon]

Not so good, apparently.

It might be time to go back to file rooms and pneumatic tube systems. Physical In/Out trays, secretarial and typist pools, gal Fridays, go-fers, microfiche machines and flesh and blood company librarians.

Or regular backups, with the backups stored off-site.

[MechAg94]

Or regular backups, with the backups stored off-site.

Off site on the Cloud would be more likely.

[just Warren]

We're talking about a government and a Democratic one at that so it's likely best to dumb the system down by a lot than expect them to maintain good security hygiene and crises responses.

[T.O.M.]

County I work for got hit with one of these a couple of years ago.  Because of good backup, and a lot of luck (They had backed up the system at noon, and the virus hit at 4:30) the IT people were able to tell the hijackers to kiss off.  A couple of hours of work product was lost.  Took a week to check and clear every computer on the network.  And, my court bought our own backup system so we aren't dependent on the IT people