Security News > 2021 > April > Ransomware attack hits Washington, D.C. police department
Another government agency has found itself the victim of a ransomware attack, and this time it's Washington, D.C.'s own police department.
Serving the nation's capital, the Metropolitan Police Department has acknowledged unauthorized access on its server, an attack for which the Babuk Locker gang has claimed responsibility, according to BleepingComputer and other sites.
"Hello! Even an institution such as DC can be threatened, we have downloaded a sufficient amount of information from your internal networks, and we advise you to contact us as soon as possible, to prevent leakage, if no response is received within 3 days, we will start to contact gangs in order to drain the informants, we will continue to attack the state sector of the usa, fbi csa, we find 0 day before you, even larger attacks await you soon."
Local agencies may not have the lucrative data or huge budgets of larger organizations, but they're often more vulnerable to ransomware attacks.
"While smaller localities may not have as much 'treasure' for a ransomware gang, the likelihood of success in such an attack means than even a smaller payout will make going after more small targets worthwhile, compared to say, attempting to attack the NSA.".
"Having a strong cyber insurance policy that covers ransomware can help in part recover from direct costs involved in a double-extortion ransomware scheme, but there are many indirect costs that may be incurred in such a ransomware attack," said Neil Daswani, co-director of Stanford Online's Advanced Cybersecurity Program.
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