Hackers Holding City Governments Hostage in US

Hackers are targeting municipalities across the US, taking hostage valuable information and demanding ransom for its return.

The Wall Street Journal reports more cities, counties, and towns are forced to spend taxpayer dollars to recover information and rebuild systems.

Unlike private businesses, local governments may be less prepared for an attack, according to security experts. 

"We're right at the front end of this," Marshall Davies, executive director of the Alexandria, Va.-based Public Risk Management Association told the Journal. Hackers are "just now coming after the public entities. They've been hitting the businesses for years," he said.

Attacks on the public sector are increasing faster than the private sector. In March, hackers hit the city of Atlanta, demanding $51,000 in bitcoin. The city refused to pay and ended up facing more than $20 million in costs to rebuild its systems.

In Leeds, Alabama, the city agreed to pay $8,000 to get its information back.

"You just hold your nose and do it," Mayor David Miller told the Journal. 

After being paid, the hackers provided a code that helped the city regain access to most of its files, he said.

More cities are buying cybersecurity insurance to cover their potential losses.

One example is Franklin County, Ohio. The city bought at $10 million policy last year that comes with a $200,000 annual premium. The county has not had an attack but was motivated after seeing hackers disrupt other Ohio municipalities.

Some officials say they would prefer to spend money on better system backups, but the insurance settlement wouldn't solve the problem to access current data in order to serve the public.