Malware, Ransomware, Threat Management

Atlanta cyberattack destroyed critical police evidence

While Atlanta city officials have claimed for the last three months the recent SamSam ransomware has had no effect on public safety, the city's police chief has revealed the attack compromised critical police evident.

The attack wiped out the city police department's dashcam footage archive which could compromise DUI cases and has already resulted in a Police Department investigator being unable to produce a critical piece of evidence in testimony at a personnel hearing given by a veteran, Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields told WSB-TV Channel 2.

Shields would not speculate on how many cases were affected but when asked if the attack may have compromised any use of force or pursuit cases, Shields said she not worried.

“I'm not overly concerned,” Shields said. “I'm really not, because that's a tool, a useful tool, but the dashcam doesn't make cases for us.”

The police department along with several other city agencies placed new cybersecurity systems in place following the attack and the city has awarded more than $5 million in emergency contracts to deal with the impact of the attack and to harden the city's defenses.

The city has been dealing with the after-effects of the attack since it was hit with the ransomware attack on March 12 of this year at which time the threat actor demanded a $51,000 ransom payment to unlock the encrypted files.

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