Dallas property appraisal website back from ransomware attack
DALLAS — It is back from the dead! The website of DCAD—the Dallas Central Appraisal District—is almost fully recovered from a devastating ransomware attack last November that shut down the functionality of the appraisal district’s computer systems.
Officials there suspect an overseas outfit called Royal Ransomware is responsible. They say the FBI is investigating.
That suspected cybercriminal group is the same one that reportedly attacked the appraisal district in Austin a few months ago. Separately, the appraisal district in San Antonio was also reportedly hit with ransomware last year.
This is a big problem. In fact, they’re planning a special panel discussion about lessons learned from all of this when the Texas Association of Appraisal Districts convenes its annual meeting in Dallas later this month. DCAD has quite a story to share.
Recovering from ransomware cost the Dallas property appraisal district a lot
Leaders at the Dallas appraisal offices think the hackers got in through an email that an employee clicked on months ago. They suspect the bad actors were in the DCAD system undetected for some time before they struck on election day last November, freezing the DCAD computer systems.
They say the bad actors threatened to make the records public, but that wasn’t a great concern, since most records are publicly accessible anyway. Whoever took the data hostage then locked the files and demanded $1 million. DCAD balked at that figure, but through an intermediary, eventually paid a ransom of $170,000 in cryptocurrency.
After that, the cyber crooks gave DCAD a digital key to unlock the system. But it only partially worked. So, information technology experts have been rebuilding the servers.
The appraisal district just hired outside companies to monitor their system 24/7 for anything suspicious. They have also hired a firm to help back up all their files offsite in case this ever happens again. Before, those records were not backed up elsewhere.
In total, DCAD estimates this has cost them somewhere under a half million dollars. They tell us it was paid out of their emergency fund, and that this is the first time in 40 years they’ve had to dip into that account.
