Ransomware is increasingly becoming a problem to cities and municipalities around the country. The ransomware attack that hit Baltimore earlier this year is perhaps the most famous one, as it brought the entire city government to its knees. The hackers took down the city’s computer systems and demanded a ransom of 13 bitcoins in order to restore access. The city refused, and consequently will end up spending over $18 million to fix its systems.
Hackers learned from that and began targeting other cities. Some smaller cities ended up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransoms to the hackers. And now those same ransomware programs that affected US cities have jumped over the ocean and are affecting Chinese companies and municipalities.
The hackers know that the data held by many companies is valuable to them, if not to others. Without access to their data, to emails, to financial records, etc., they can’t continue to operate. And many of them practice such lax cybersecurity that they are relatively easy to exploit. That makes them a favorite target of cybercriminals.
As more and more companies and municipalities decide to pay those ransoms, it will only further embolden cybercriminals to continue these brazen attacks. And it’s a reminder to both organizations and individuals that they need to get better at protecting their vitally important electronic data.
For Bitcoin investors, this is just another reminder that they too need to practice proper security. Keeping data of any sort open to the internet without protection means that it’s only a matter of time before you become a victim of this sort of attack. Make sure that none of your Bitcoin assets are stored in hot wallets, otherwise you might end up losing everything.
Bitcoin assets need to be thoroughly protected, which Bitcoin IRA custodians are well versed in doing. Only a Bitcoin IRA can offer you the safety and security you need to keep your cyber assets safe.
This article was originally posted on Coin IRA.
