1.0 Incident:
A Police Department in Cockrell Hill, a smaller town just west of Dallas, Texas recently fell victim to a phishing attack and had to decide between losing several years’ worth of evidence or paying a ransom to cybercriminals.

2.0 Analysis:
Phishing is a form of fraud in which attackers attempt to gain access to and or learn information such as login credentials, other account information, and etc. by masquerading as reputable entities mostly through emails or instant messaging. Typically what happens is, victims will receive a message that appears to be from a known contact or reputable organization. Then when opened, the message will contain either some form of attachment or link(s) containing malware.
In this case, the Cockrell Hill Police Department was victim to just that. Someone from inside the department clicked on an email from what appeared as a legitimate department-issued email address. The message subsequently introduced a virus to the departments computer system. The virus corrupted all their files on the server and produced a computer-generated ransom message, demanding approximately $4,000 worth of Bitcoins.
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In this particular instance, the cybercriminal were more likely after the ransom than the actual files and information itself. The Cockrell Hill Police Department also consulted experts in the field about the situation at hand. One of these experts included the FBI’s Cyber Division, who believed paying doesn’t guarantee anything, sometimes people get what’s theirs back and sometimes they don’t. Experts also analyzed the code from the virus, and although it’s not certain, the virus is believed to have originated from the Ukraine. Ultimately Stephen Barlag and the department made the decision not to pay the ransom, and to wipe the infected servers