Hackers use ransomware to attack the city of Atlanta
On March 22, local time, the city of Atlanta, USA suffered a cyber attack. Then Atlanta International Airport shut down the airport’s WiFi system, leaving the airport’s approximately 275,000 daily passengers and 63,000 employees scrambling for internet connectivity.
Now circulating around Atlanta City Hall after a widespread computer hack. (📷 = @johnjspink) #gapol #atlpol pic.twitter.com/5qkj90SdLy
— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) March 23, 2018
The ransomware is affecting applications that customers use to pay bills and access court-related information among other things. The attackers demanded the equivalent of $51,000 in digital currency to unlock the system.
On the afternoon of March 22, Atlanta Airport announced through the official Twitter that the city government “is currently experiencing outages on various customer-facing applications, including some that customers may use to pay bills or access court-related information,” and the airport WiFi system was temporarily shut down and the airport was trying to solve this problem.
On the 23rd, the airport stated that the network system still cannot be used and that security check waiting and flight information was affected, reminding passengers to contact the airline for inquiries. A spokesman for the Atlanta airport said there is no timetable for when the airport will resume WiFi. He said that the airport has not been directly affected by cyber attacks, but due to careful consideration, it decided to put the system offline.
