Ransomware: The Greatest Threat to State and Local Governments Today

By John Gray, CTO at InterVision on January 10, 2023

Historically, government organizations have faced fewer attacks than their peers in other industries, particularly education and healthcare. But state and local governments have become a popular target for bad actors over the last two years — nearly half of all ransomware in 2020 targeted municipalities. And in 2021, almost 60 percent of state and local governments faced a ransomware attack, up from just one-third of government organizations the year before.

The trend toward more frequent government ransomware attacks is concerning for several reasons. First and foremost, governments provide constituents with critical, everyday infrastructure, which makes ransomware-related outages costly and damaging. This incentivizes government IT leaders to address ransomware breaches quickly by paying the ransom. Second, and equally important, many state and local governments continue to use legacy hardware for their IT infrastructure. Without cloud-based protections and modernized cybersecurity protocols, many state and local governments face an uphill battle when it comes to addressing ransomware.

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