Lessons learned from 2019 ransomware scam: clerk

The Municipality of Bonfield keeps close tabs on its digital assets, including its website and all data held within town hall.

They plan to keep it that way, and will continue running security tests on the system at regular intervals.

In 2019, Bonfield became the victim of a ransomware scam. This caper involves hacking into a system, and holding the information hostage until a fee is paid to the culprits. However, the municipality came out of that unscathed, said Andrée

Gagné, Bonfield’s municipal clerk.

She mentioned that since all municipal data is backed up daily, if such an attack occurs again, the town can revert to a previous save point, and the damage would be very minimal, as the only information at risk would be new information received on the very day of the attack.

Because of this, the municipality did not have to pay its ransomware attacker.

“We’re not at a very high risk of losing data,” councillor Jason Corbett said, “if a ransomware threat occurred.” However, he added, it’s still a municipal priority to ensure everything remains safe from attack.

With that in mind, council decided to put out a tender to businesses who can help ensure the town’s security remains strong. Plans are underway to bring more information back to council for its consideration before a decision is made at the next meeting.