Maine Police Pay Ransomware Demand in Bitcoin

The Lincoln County Sheriff's Office and four town police departments were infected with the "megacode" virus.

In an effort to keep their computer files from being destroyed, a group of cooperative police departments in Maine paid a $300 ransom demandin bitcoin.

According to local news station WCSH-TV, the shared computer system of the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office and four town police departments was infected with the "megacode" virus.

When someone using the communal network accidentally downloaded the virus, an encryption code locked all the computer data, holding it for ransom. After the $300 fee was paid via a bitcoin transfer, the police received a code to unlock the encryption and restore their files.

"We needed our programs to get back online," Damariscotta Police Chief Ron Young told WCSH-TV. "And that was a choice we all discussed and took to get back on line to get our information."

There is no official word on who carried out the attack; the FBI could only track the bitcoin payment to a Swiss bank account.

The hackcommonly known as ransomwareis a virus that blackmails users by encrypting their hard drives or locking them out of their computer. The only way to gain access again: pay the monetary demand. There is no guarantee, however, that the machine will be restored.

A similar struggle was depicted in a fall episode of CBS drama The Good Wife. The hackers demanded $50,000 on the show, but real-life ransoms are typically a much less pricey $200 to $400.

A common currency for paying off hackers, bitcoin was named the world's worst legal tender for 2014 by Bloomberg, which said bitcoin peaked at around $1,130 in 2013, landing at $320 by the end of last year.

For more, see Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin.

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Maine Police Pay Ransomware Demand in Bitcoin