MEDFORD, Ore. — Jackson County says it’s taking steps to prepare for a ransomware attack.
A ransomware attack is when a criminal infects your computer, locks you out of all your data, and you have to pay them a ransom to get it back.
The attacks can target anyone, from a local homeowner to multi-million dollar corporation.
Jackson County Technology Director, Mark Decker, says the attacks are growing increasingly more sophisticated and damaging.
To defend against an attack, he says the county is making sure all of its software is up to date and is creating back up copies of its data.
“What they’ll do is infect the entire network. It will spread throughout the network as a worm before it detonates,” said Mark Decker, Jackson County Technology Director. “So all the computers are locked up at once and it can be really difficult to eradicate.”
Decker says the county was already the victim of a smaller-scale ransomware attack a few years ago, but he says they got lucky and didn’t have to pay the ransom.
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