Iowa Capital Dispatch
State and local officials say they need more federal aid to combat cybercrime. (Creative Commons photo via Pxhere)
WASHINGTON — In October 2019, officials at a tiny western New Hampshire school district suddenly realized they had a problem on their hands.
The Sunapee School District’s servers, documents and other internal information systems had been locked down by an outside entity demanding a ransom payment.
System backups meant the school district eventually was able to resume its operations without paying ransom to the attackers. But the recovery took nine days and cost more than $40,000 in fees, materials and hardware, according to Russell Holden, the district’s superintendent.