The Louisiana Division of Administration had to spend 2.3 million dollars, mostly on personnel, responding to cyberattacks over the last year.
Spokesperson Jacques Berry says last year’s series of attacks is evidence that the threat to public sector entities from cyberspace is growing.
“Cyberattacks or ransomware data encryption is going to happen probably more and more to government agencies as well,” says Berry.
Berry says these kinds of attacks require fast responses, and they don’t come cheap.
“This is all basically salaries and related benefits of our assets who responded to the attacks and did it over the course of a whole lot of overtime hours,” says Berry.
He says the 2.3 million dollar figure does not include local government spending on the responses.
1.7 million of it went towards response to the massive ransomware attack that crippled state services like the OMV in November, but hackers should know they’ll never get a dime from the state.
“The state does not pay a ransom, and that is a policy, we are not going to pay someone to get our data unlocked,” says Berry.
