Pennsylvania (US state)

Population

Fertility and mortality

2013: Average age of women at birth of first child is 25-26 years

EU Country Data - 2019 US Data - 2013

History

2024: Authorities pay $350,000 ransom after ransomware virus attack that blocked state servers

On February 15, 2024, county authorities Washington in Pennsylvania announced the payment of a ransom of almost $350 thousand to cybercriminals who organized a massive attack using. programs extortioners This invasion effectively paralyzed work. state IT infrastructures

Signs of the hacker attack in question were first recorded on January 19, 2024 in systems serving the suburbs of Pittsburgh. A few days later, this cyber activity turned into a large-scale invasion of the ransomware virus, affecting various state services. On February 5, 2024, Sylint, a company specializing in information security issues, confirmed that the attackers stole a large amount of confidential data: these are social security and driver's license numbers, as well as information about minors from the judicial system. The criminals encrypted the files and demanded a ransom. Authorities say cybercriminals were able to seize control of the county's computer network by blocking all operations.

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The official position of the FBI is that victims of ransomware should not pay ransom, because there is no guarantee that attackers will decrypt information. In addition, payment encourages cybercriminals to carry out such attacks. However, in the event of an attack on Pennsylvania, it was not possible to restore access to encoded data to specialists on their own. As a result, the district commission voted to pay money to the attackers.

It is noted that Washington County turned to DigitalMint from Chicago to transfer $346,687 in cryptocurrency to criminals. In exchange, the hackers provided a decryption key to unlock the servers and promised to delete all stolen data.^[1]

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