Texas Police Unit Loses Years Of Evidence To Ransomware

The server of a police department in Cockrell Hill, Tex., was recently the victim of ransomware. The attack wiped out eight years worth of evidence, including Microsoft documents, photos, body camera video, in-house surveillance video, and in-car camera video, reports BleepingComputer. Officials said they were unsure how this loss would affect ongoing investigations, but few prosecutions are expected to suffer.

Data lost in the attack dates back to 2009, the department reported. Information stored on CDs and DVDs remains intact, but officials are more concerned about data that relates to ongoing investigations.

The hackers used an email with a spoofed address to infect the system and demanded $4,000 to unlock the files. After consulting the FBI, the police ignored the demand. Instead, they wiped the server clean and reinstalled everything.

Although the police claimed to have been attacked by OSIRIS virus, BleepingComputer says the ransomware used was possibly a new version of Locky, which affixes the ".osiris" extension at the end of infected files.

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