Second Florida town pays out $500k to ransomware hackers
Lake City and Riveria Beach combined pay out over $1 million to regain control of municipal computer systems


For the second time in a week, a Florida town has been forced to pay a ransom to hackers in order to regain control of government computer systems.
It's reported that Lake City, a town located in the north of the state, has paid out almost $500,000 in bitcoin after a ransomware attack brought down most of the town's municipal email systems and landline phones.
It comes just one week after officials in Riviera Beach, a town in the south of the state, were forced to pay out $600,000 to regain control of their hacked systems.
Lake City's municipal systems had been down since 10 June after falling foul of a malware attack known as 'Tripple threat' - a ransomware program that combines three different methods of attack to target network systems.
Lake City mayor Stephen Witt told CBS on Tuesday: "I would've never dreamed this could've happened, especially in a small town like this."
Although Lake City has yet to say how the ransomware was spread to its systems, the attack on Riviera Beach was reportedly the result of an employee opening a malicious email attachment, according to the New York Times.
The virus took down all of Riviera Beach's online systems, including email and some phones, as well as water utility pump stations.
Sign up today and you will receive a free copy of our Future Focus 2025 report - the leading guidance on AI, cybersecurity and other IT challenges as per 700+ senior executives
"Anything that was done online, we did not have access to," city spokeswoman Rose Anne Brown told the newspaper.
Andrea Carcano, CPO of Nozomi Networks, said the two attacks were "a testament to the growing use of ransomware attacks to target US cities".
"This is a scary reminder of the damage cybercriminals can inflict when they target critical infrastructure and government services," she said. "However, by agreeing to pay the ransom both councils are only fuelling the profitability of the ransomware industry for attackers."
In 2018, a ransomware attack on Alaskan borough Matanuska-Susitna was so severe that one of its offices had to resort to using typewriters while its systems were repaired. In May, the city of Baltimore lost control of its public services for more than two weeks after a ransomware attack crippled its government's computer systems.
Unlike Lake City and Riveria Beach, however, Baltimore officials refused to pay out. On that occasion, hackers had demanded 13 bitcoins, valued at just under $100,000 at the time, but city officials were advised by the FBI not to give funds to the hackers.
According to the Baltimore Sun, the recovery operations cost Baltimore approximately $18.2 million.
Bobby Hellard is ITPro's Reviews Editor and has worked on CloudPro and ChannelPro since 2018. In his time at ITPro, Bobby has covered stories for all the major technology companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook, and regularly attends industry-leading events such as AWS Re:Invent and Google Cloud Next.
Bobby mainly covers hardware reviews, but you will also recognize him as the face of many of our video reviews of laptops and smartphones.
-
Are chief AI officers here to stay?
In-depth Mainstay of the boardroom or short-term project leader, CAIOs are the subject of intense consideration
-
US companies dominate the European cloud market – regional players are left fighting for scraps
News Synergy data shows EU providers hold just 15% of the market despite rise in AI and drive for cloud sovereignty
-
Hackers breached a 158 year old company by guessing an employee password – experts say it’s a ‘pertinent reminder’ of the devastating impact of cyber crime
News A Panorama documentary exposed hackers' techniques and talked to the teams trying to tackle them
-
The ransomware boom shows no signs of letting up – and these groups are causing the most chaos
News Thousands of ransomware cases have already been posted on the dark web this year
-
Everything we know about the Ingram Micro cyber attack so far
News A cyber attack on Ingram Micro severely disrupted operations and has been claimed by the SafePay ransomware group.
-
A prolific ransomware group says it’s shutting down and giving out free decryption keys to victims – but cyber experts warn it's not exactly a 'gesture of goodwill'
News The Hunters International ransomware group is rebranding and switching tactics
-
Swiss government data published following supply chain attack – here’s what we know about the culprits
News Radix, a non-profit organization in the health promotion sector, supplies a number of federal offices, whose data has apparently been accessed.
-
Ransomware victims are getting better at haggling with hackers
News While nearly half of companies paid a ransom to get their data back last year, victims are taking an increasingly hard line with hackers to strike fair deals.
-
LockBit data dump reveals a treasure trove of intel on the notorious hacker group
News An analysis of May's SQL database dump shows how much LockBit was really making
-
‘I take pleasure in thinking I can rid society of at least some of them’: A cyber vigilante is dumping information on notorious ransomware criminals – and security experts say police will be keeping close tabs
News An anonymous whistleblower has released large amounts of data allegedly linked to the ransomware gangs