"thousands of attacks worldwide"
Florida city pays $600,000 ransom to save computer records

The Riviera Beach City Council voted unanimously this week to pay the hackers' demands, believing the Palm Beach suburb had no choice if it wanted to retrieve its records, which the hackers encrypted. The council already voted to spend almost $1 million on new computers and hardware after hackers captured the city's system three weeks ago.

[X] opportunity -- phishing CRM employees

The hackers apparently got into the city's system when an employee clicked on an email link that allowed them to upload malware.

[ ] means -- not NSA Eternal Blue or Stuxnet, ebola, or 60K other "malware" monitored by MSFT
[X] motive

"We are relying on their (the consultants') advice," she said. The hackers demanded payment in the cryptocurrency bitcoin. While it is possible to trace bitcoins as they are spent, the owners of the accounts aren't necessarily known, making it a favored payment method in ransomware attacks.

[ ] suspects -- excluding Russian and Chinese spies

The U.S. government indicted two Iranians last year for allegedly unleashing more than 200 ransomware attacks, including against the cities of Atlanta and Newark, New Jersey. ... The federal government last year also accused a North Korean programmer of committing the "WannaCry" attack that infected government, bank, factory and hospital computers in 150 countries.

online 2020 Census is going to be GREAT! Once the citizen question is eliminated from "the system" and the tubes are secured. 45% response rate. Plus a paper trail of accurate ENUMERATION. u betcha.

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