Baltimore: three weeks without city systems
Ransomware stopped Baltimore’s email, payments and property sales. The city refused to pay, and is rebuilding.
Since 7 May, Baltimore’s city government has been struggling with ransomware. Email, online payments for water bills and parking tickets, and property sales were all disrupted. The attackers demanded about 76,000 dollars in bitcoin. The city refused to pay.
Recovery will cost far more than the ransom, as it usually does. That’s the honest maths of ransomware.
Lessons for any organisation:
- Backups have to be offline and tested, and include system configurations, not just data.
- Old systems are expensive when they fail. Budget for replacing them before an incident does it for you.
- Have manual fallbacks for the services people rely on, like payments and permits.
- Plan communications: residents and customers need to know what still works.
Spending on prevention always looks expensive, until you see the bill for recovery.