Ten days after a malware attack crippled the University of Calgary's computer system school officials reported that it paid a $20,000 CDN, or $15,7492 U.S.,ransom to regain access.
Linda Dalgetty, the university's vice-president for finance and services, wrote that the institution's IT department had been partially successful addressing some of the problems caused by the cyber attack, such as, limiting its scope and partially restoring services such as email on June 6, but despite this progress it was decided to pay the ransom.
“As part of efforts to maintain all options to address these systems issues, the university has paid a ransom totalling about $20,000 CDN that was demanded as part of this “ransomware” attack,” Dalgetty wrote.
Even with the decryption keys in hand the school is still working to unlock its systems. Dalgetty said the IT department is evaluating the “keys” and then will commence with what she described as the “time-consuming process” of recovering the data.
