Davidson County's computer network is once again fully operational one month after getting hit with a ransomware attack that affected the majority of the municipalities servers and computers.
The county was initially hit on Feb. 16, 2018 when an unnamed ransomware struck knocking 70 of 90 county servers offline along with an unknown number of end points, said County Manager Zeb Hanner, according to a Government Technology report. The attackers demanded a ransom, the amount of which has not been revealed, but local officials refused to pay and instead relied on their IT department to restore services.
The ransomware affected almost all county operations including its police and 911 call center.
The Davidson attack came two months after Mecklenburg County, N.C. was hit with as similar attack and its leaders originally considered paying the two bitcoin ransom, or about $25,000 at the time. The decision was made to not pay because there was no guarantee the files would be released and there was a chance the attackers could have installed a backdoor and return asking for another payment. The county eventually rebuilt its network.
