Aftermath of the Atlanta ransomware breach

- [Instructor] And now the aftermath.…(dramatic music)…The costs of the breach were staggering.…The attackers had demanded a ransom…of approximately $50,000 in Bitcoin.…But the direct costs associated with this breach…could be as high as 100 times that amount.…The City of Atlanta's Procurement Department…is responsible for managing contracts…issued by the city and has a process…for bypassing the normal bureaucracy…in the event of an emergency.…

Their website lists all the times…that the emergency process was used…and the maximum amount of the contract.…If we look carefully at this accounting…of emergency contracts,…we see that there are a total of 16 emergency contracts…that were issued between March 22nd and April 26th, 2018,…that relate to information technology…and cybersecurity products and services.…The face value of those contracts is over $5 million.…That's an enormous sum of money to spend…as a result of a single malware infection.…

And this is only the amount of money spent…through the emergency procurement process.…