The Lincoln County Sheriff's Office and four town police departments were infected with the \"megacode\" virus.<\/p>\n
In an effort to keep their computer files from being destroyed, a group of cooperative police departments in Maine paid a $300 ransom demandin bitcoin. <\/p>\n
According to local news station WCSH-TV, the shared computer system of the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office and four town police departments was infected with the \"megacode\" virus. <\/p>\n
When someone using the communal network accidentally downloaded the virus, an encryption code locked all the computer data, holding it for ransom. After the $300 fee was paid via a bitcoin transfer, the police received a code to unlock the encryption and restore their files. <\/p>\n
\"We needed our programs to get back online,\" Damariscotta Police Chief Ron Young told WCSH-TV. \"And that was a choice we all discussed and took to get back on line to get our information.\" <\/p>\n
There is no official word on who carried out the attack; the FBI could only track the bitcoin payment to a Swiss bank account. <\/p>\n
The hackcommonly known as ransomwareis a virus that blackmails users by encrypting their hard drives or locking them out of their computer. The only way to gain access again: pay the monetary demand. There is no guarantee, however, that the machine will be restored. <\/p>\n
A similar struggle was depicted in a fall episode of CBS drama The Good Wife. The hackers demanded $50,000 on the show, but real-life ransoms are typically a much less pricey $200 to $400. <\/p>\n
A common currency for paying off hackers, bitcoin was named the world's worst legal tender for 2014 by Bloomberg, which said bitcoin peaked at around $1,130 in 2013, landing at $320 by the end of last year. <\/p>\n
For more, see Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin. <\/p>\n
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\nMaine Police Pay Ransomware Demand in Bitcoin<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"