Mecklenburg County Releases Email Sent By Hackers After Ransomware Attack
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Mecklenburg County officials have released a copy of the email sent by hackers after taking over County computer systems earlier this week.
You can read the full email below:
“All your files have beenencrypted!
All your files have been encrypted due to a security problem with your PC. If you want to restore them, write us to the e-mail support: ——— or ———–.
Write this ID in the title of your message.
In case of no answer in 24 hours write us to these e-mails support: ———— or ———–.
You have to pay for decryption in Bitcoins. The price dependson how fast you write to us. After payment we will send you the decryption tool that will decrypt all your files.
Free decryption as guarantee
Before paying you can send us up to 3 files for free decryption. The total size of files must be less than 10Mb (nonarchived), and files should not contain valuable information. (databases,backups, large excel sheets, etc.)
How to obtain Bitcoins
The easiest way to buy bitcoins is LocalBitcoins site. Youhave to register, click ‘Buy bitcoins’, and select the seller by payment method and price. https://localbitcoins.com/buy_bitcoins
Also you can find other places to buy Bitcoins and beginnersguide here: http://www.coindesk.com/information/how-can-i-buy-bitcoins/
Attention!
Do not rename encrypted files.
Do not try to decrypt your data using third party software, it may cause permanent data loss.
Decryption of your files with the help of third parties may cause increased price (they add their fee to our) or you can become a victim of a scam.
{{IDENTIFIER}}
Your ID ———–“
Original Story
CHARLOTTE, NC– “We made them mad and so now they’re retaliating,” said County Manager, Dena Diorio.
Mecklenburg County Manager Dena Diorio stands 100 % behind the county’s decision not to pay thousands of dollars after hackers attacked 48 of the county’s 500 servers. Even after the hackers hit back.
“They’ve sort of re-upped and doubled down and have made many many attempts to try and get back in our network but we’ve caught it, we’ve seen it,” said Diorio.
Diorio says the county had backups in place and now I-T is working around the clock. Meanwhile, they’ve taken away county employees ability to open attachments in Google and Dropbox as well as any international emails.
“We’re really looking at three phases we’re looking at containment, forensics, and recovery so each of those phases is ongoing and they will not interfere with each other as we try to move forward,” said Diorio.
“It happens all the time, attempts like this happen at every major company,” said Katalyst Director of Sales, Parker Cains.
Parker Cains with Katalyst Business and I-T Consulting says the retaliation is very common, and that the county needs to make sure the hackers don’t find another way in.
“It could possibly even be a distraction so by saying look over here we’re still trying to get into your emails doesn’t mean they don’t already have a back door and doing something else,” said Cains.
Diorio says their experts are looking for any possible vulnerabilities. She visited county offices Thursday thanking employees who have also been hard at work keeping the county running.
“We are providing all services in the county we haven’t shut anything down completely but employees are having to work differently,” said Diorio.
Mecklenburg County has listed all county offices and where residents can access the services they need on their website at https://www.mecknc.gov/news/Pages/Countywide-system-outage.aspx
