Another crypto ransomware victim: an American school had to pay $ 8500 to the developers of a cryptographic virus

The administration of an American school from Horry County (South Carolina, USA) had to pay $ 8500 to the developers of a crypto ransomware that hit school servers. This ransomware infiltrated the school’s computer network last week, hitting 25 servers that stored all the information about students in the school. Immediately after this happened, the staff turned off all servers to prevent further spread of the virus. Naturally, school services stopped working.

The crypto ransomware requested 0.8 bitcoins from a computer, it turned out exactly 20 bitcoins. School officials said the virus penetrated an old server with outdated software and hardware. A complaint was also filed with the FBI, but as in all similar cases, the Bureau was little able to help.

After the IT specialists called for help could not do anything, the school administration decided to pay. And on February 15, the payment went to the attackers. Local newspapers also reported problems with making the payment, since the school had to look for a way to convert dollars into bitcoins, indicating all the costs in the regular documents.

Almost immediately after payment, the administration received a key to decrypt the files, and was able to restore all services and files. Even before the network was infected with a crypto ransomware, the school began to look for a company that could protect the institution’s network. As you can see, the administration failed to find protection on time.

Let me remind you that just recently one of the hospitals in Hollywood had to pay$ 17,000 for developers of similar software, since ransomware completely blocked the network of the institution. The encryption virus that infected the computer network of the institution encrypted all files on infected PCs, and the key that allows decrypting the files is known only to hackers.

Attackers who create such ransomware do not always send keys after the victim makes a payment. But in this case, everything worked out, and the work of the school network, services now goes on as before.