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Police departments regularly pay to hackers
Police departments are regular victims of ransomware viruses. Police departments regularly pay
to hackers. What's wrong with the system? There is a government rule of not paying ransoms to
criminals, but it is not working at all.
To serve and protect their moto is. How can they protect us if they cannot protect themselves?
Crime is moving from the streets to computers. Although special agencies should take care of
cyber crime, Police should adapt too. At least they should be able to protect themselves in order
to be able to keep records of offline crime and stop offline crime.
If we can’t rely on the people enforcing our laws to stand up to criminals, then we’re in trouble.
Police payment cases grow every day. Amounts were not big but they may grow. Here is list of
cases.
1) Swansea, Massachusetts, November 2013, paid $750
2) Dickson, Tennessee, October 2014, paid $572
3) Tewksbury, Massachusetts, December 2014, paid $500
4) Midlothian, Illinois, January 2015, paid $500
5) Lincoln County, Maine, April 2015, paid $300
6) Melrose, Massachusetts, February 2016, paid $489
In many cases we see that even basic infosec measures are not met.
Shocking comments from police officers:
“It was an education for those who had to deal with it.”
Swansea Police Lt. Gregory Ryan http://www.heraldnews.com/x2132756948/Swansea-police-
pay-750-ransom-after-computer-virus-strikes
“It was an eye opening experience, I can tell you right now. It made you feel that you lost control
of everything. Paying the Bitcoin ransom was the last resort.”
The Tewksbury Police Department Chief Timothy Sheehan http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/2015/04/police-chief-paying-the-bitcoin-ransom-was-the-last-resort/
So, they are still unaware of Internet and learning. Have they heard of breaches? What are they
doing in this direction? Education should have been taken place before during systematical
cyber security learning courses.
54 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine December 2016 Edition
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