The Lincolnshire County Council IT Systems have returned to normal after almost a week of cleaning up a ransomware attack.
Lincolnshire’s IT systems were infected after an employee opened an email causing malware to attack the computer systems.
One the malware was spotted, Lincolnshire shut down its entire IT network and said that 458 servers were then scanned to ensure malware did not infect any other systems.
According to Police, Lincolnshire was asked to pay a ransom fee of $500 after the ransomware attack and were threatened by hackers that the ransom fee would increase the longer it took to receive the payment. The demand for $500 was not in fact paid, and police stated the council never had plans to pay the fee.
The IT systems of Lincolnshire were taken offline on Tuesday, January 26, and took almost a week to fully restore the network and allow employees to use computers and the internet again. The shutdown affected services like local libraries and online booking systems.
The council has said they’re working with local police authorities in order to identify the perpetrators of the attack.
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