Over 170 municipalities in the world victims of 'ransomware'

2019 was the year of ransomware attacks targeting Municipalities. During the last 12 months, in fact, at least 174 municipal institutions and over 3,000 related organizations have been targeted in the world, with an increase of 60% compared to 2018. While requests for the redemption of cyber criminals sometimes reach up to 5 million dollars. These are some of the data contained in the Kaspersky Security Bulletin Report: Story of the Year 2019.

Ransomware is a well-known 'headache' that has been affecting users and companies all over the world for several years now. Cybercriminals with a malicious virus target a device, encrypt data and make it illegible to the owner, and in order to get it back, users or companies must pay a ransom ('ransom'). In the case of affected municipal institutions, the cause is to be charged to three more well-known families of ransomware: Ryuk, Purga and Stop.

In public administration, blocking any service not only results in financial losses but also in blocking services to citizens. "From our investigations it emerged that the tendency of the Municipalities to pay the ransom is justified by the stipulation of insurances that cover the cost of the IT risks or by budgets previously allocated for the incident response services. To avoid these attacks, however, the best approach consists in investing in proactive measures: proven security and backup solutions and regular security checks, "comments Fedor Sinitsyn, Kaspersky security researcher.