Ransomware attack cost New Orleans $7 million and counting

A ransomware attack on New Orleans has racked up at least $7 million in financial damage to The City That Care Forgot, its mayor said.

New Orleans was able to get back $3 million through a cyber insurance policy, the mayor told WVUE, which also cited Chief Administrative Officer Gilbert Montano as saying the city has an IT backlog in the wake of the December attack.

“Now, we’re in the stabilization period,” Montano said. “We are trying to rebuild what we had to turn off essentially and that is a long, laborious, time-sensitive process and that’s where I am telling staff and employees we’re looking maybe at a six to eight month window before actual normalcy starts to integrate all of our systems.”