Two US towns pay $1.1m ransom to hackers

A town in Florida has paid $500,000 (£394,000) to hackers after a ransomware attack, the BBC reports.

The total money paid by Florida municipalities over ransomware in the last two weeks now stands at $1.1m.

Officials in Lake City voted to pay hackers in Bitcoin after suffering downed computer systems for two weeks.

Read also: US launches cyber-attack on Iran weapons systems, reports say

Coastal suburb Riviera Beach recently paid hackers $600,000 following a similar incident that locked municipal staff out of important files.

According to reports, IT staff in Lake City disconnected staff computers within minutes of the attack starting, but it was too late.

Workers were locked out of email accounts and members of the public were left unable to make municipal payments online.

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