The problem is that they don't always give you your computer system back - the city pays the ransom, and may never hear from these people again. There are cyber-security companies that are skilled at unraveling this stuff, but they are expensive and it takes some time, so sometimes just paying the ransom seems like the easiest course, but if you pay it and your computers are still bricks, now there's added time and expense.
I was the victim of an attempted ransomware attack last year; the attack failed because I had anti-ransomware software installed which detected it - software I had just installed a couple of months before. Most major antivirus programs now offer protection against ransomware (don't know if the free ones do, but it's worth paying for), but a lot of companies and even cities don't want to pay for that protection for their IT systems - until the horse is already out of the barn. |
