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MA: Melrose Police pay hackers $489 in Bitcoin to recover encryption key

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Dissent

Aaron Leibowitz reports:

Hackers stole the encryption key to a software system at the Melrose Police Station on Thursday evening, compelling the department to pay the hackers one Bitcoin to regain control, Chief Michael Lyle told the Free Press on Monday.

The attack came in the form of an email sent to the entire department around 7 p.m. Thursday, Lyle said. One person opened the email, setting off a virus that voided the department’s control of a program it uses to log incident reports, known as TriTech.

Read more on Wicked Local – Melrose.

 

Category: Government SectorMalwareU.S.

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