Arstechnica: The town manager of a hamlet in south eastern New Hampshire has defied demands that he pay a ransom to recover police department computer files taken hostage by Cryptowall, a newer piece of malware that encrypts hard drive contents of infected machines until victims pay for them to be decrypted.
“Make no mistake, the Town of Durham will be paying no ransom,” Town Manager Todd Selig wasquoted as saying by CBS Boston news. Police department computers for the town of almost 15,000 residents were reportedly infected Thursday after an officer opened what appeared to be a legitimate file attachment to an e-mail. By Friday morning, widespread “issues” were hitting the department computer network. It was shut down by noon that day to prevent the infection from spreading to other systems.
