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US School Agrees To Pay $8,500 To Get Rid Of Ransomware (softpedia.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Earlier this week, the media was abuzz with the case of the Hollywood hospital that almost shut down its operations because of a ransomware infection, which it eventually paid. Something similar happened around the same time in a South Carolina school district when ransomware shut down an elementary school's servers. The school had to pay $8,500.
It should be illegal to pay ransomware criminals.
Especially if, as in this case, they are being paid with tax dollars. I can understand an unprincipled individual or private company paying ransomware, but for a government entity to pay off criminals with public funds is vile. If this was legal, we need to change the law. If it was illegal, the decision maker should be prosecuted.
You start paying, they find more targets, make their scam more professional, etc.
That isn't all bad. In the past, insecure systems were hijacked and used as spam-bots, so the cost of the insecurity was borne by others. At least with ransomware the cost is borne directly by the bozos running MS-Windows on their servers.