Texas has become the latest state to be hit by a coordinated ransomware attack, with 23 municipalities being hit by hackers demanding crypto at the same time.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and cybersecurity experts from the state’s financial crimes unit said the security breach began late last week.
The mayor of one of the cities said the attackers were asking for a $2.5 million in ransom, likely in the attackers’ preffered payment method bitcoin. Gary Heinrich, mayor of Keene, told National Public Radio that the attackers had hit the software provider that ran the city council’s IT systems.
Single Actor Attack
Elliott Sprehe, spokesman for the state’s information resources department, said that he was not aware of any of the targeted cities having paid anything to the criminals.
Sprehe added that although no-one had yet been identified as being behind the attacks, evidence so far uncovered indicated all the attacks were carried out by “one single threat actor”.
In many of the previous similar attacks seen in the US, hackers have demanded the ransom be paid in bitcoin. Indeed, in June, the Florida city of Riviera Beach paid $600,000 in the top cryptocurrency after records in one of the city’s suburbs was encrypted.
