Police and sheriff's departments in Maine pay ransom to unlock their computers

In April, 2015 police and sheriff's departments in midcoast and northern Maine paid ransom to hackers to keep their computer files from being destroyed.

The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office and four towns paid $300 to the hackers after a virus, called a “megacode,” was downloaded on a computer system they share. Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Bracket said that the computer system was unusable until the fee was paid, and that the hackers claimed the program, called “ransomware,” would wipe the entire computer system clean if the fee wasn’t paid.

The creator of the virus gave the sheriff’s office a code to unlock the computer system after the money was received. The county paid in bitcoins, an online currency. Read more at the Portland Press-Herald....

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