https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-an-unlikely-partner-to-counter-cyberattacks/

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, ransomware attacks have increased 148 percent over baseline levels from February 2020. This follows an already devastating surge in ransomware attacks against state and local governments. Hackers made headlines on August 16, 2019, after they remotely blocked access to critical data in 22 localities in Texas. That same year, Baltimore’s city government computers, three school districts in Louisiana, computer systems in Garfield County, Utah, and the city governments of Riviera Beach and Lake City in Florida were attacked. Going against official U.S. government guidance, some cities even paid the ransom in desperation to regain access to critical files or because it was simply cheaper than restoring systems and recovering data from backups. That response likely incentivizes future attacks and emboldens perpetrators, who are a combination of individuals looking for monetary gain and nation-states, as seen in a security alert released by the FBI.

Monica M. Ruiz is the Cyber Initiative and Special Projects Program Fellow at the the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.