To pay or not to pay? The dilemma for ransomware victims

Last year, a northwestern US county paid $300,000 to recover data locked by hackers, opting like many victims to pay the ransom despite experts advising against it — the same dilemma which has recently faced fuel behemoth Colonial Pipeline.

“We had no phones, and no internet and no computer system,” former Tillamook county commissioner Bill Baertlein said during an online seminar.

Authorities had studied the system to see if it could be unlocked without paying, but “we determined that we probably could not fix it.”

Colonial found itself in a similar quandary after a ransomware attack Friday forced the company — which operates the largest fuel conduit system in the United States — to shut down its entire network.