Licking County, Ohio took a licking recently. (Sorry, I couldn’t help it.) The county’s offices, including the police, were almost totally shut down due to a ransomware infection.
There’s been no disclosure as of yet as to exactly how it happened, but ransomware infections are usually caused by someone opening an attachment in an email. Sometimes it’s a little trickier to spot if it’s part of a phishing scam.
Either way, the county offices remained open, but computer operations and the landline phone systems were all down. 911, fortunately, is still up, as 911 must be able to continue to operate without computers, so at least the county doesn’t have to deal with a crime spree on top of everything else.