Lincolnshire CC said:
Chief information officer Judith Hetherington-Smith said only a small number of files were affected.
Err, not quite true love. Try ALL of them. Okay, so you have backups of most - luckily.
Lincolnshire CC said:
She said the authority took action once the malware was identified and shut its systems down.
Bit too late at this point. The Malware wan't identified - it identified itself to you when it had finished doing the damage without you realising it was even happening.
Lincolnshire CC said:
It described the ransomware as "the biggest attack" it had ever experienced, adding it was "zero-day malware", meaning it was previously unknown to security experts.
Really? I'm sure I was speaking about this type of Ransomware on Stafford Forum as long as 12 months ago.
Lincolnshire CC said:
Lincolnshire Police have confirmed they are investigating the attack
Good luck with that, seeing as reports previously suggested that even police forces "paid the bill" as they had no alternative but to do so. They can't track these criminals down due to the complexity of the the bitcoin operation used. They advise people not to pay up as it supports the crime in question by doing so - but the reality is that without a backup you really have no choice if the files are of massive value to you. The only way these types of ransomware creators will be beaten is if nobody pays up due to thorough backups they can fall back on.
I often wonder if I should specialise in business backup systems and spend my days travelling from business to business selling my services... oh wait a minute... they won't listen till it's too late.