Baltimore to Spend $20M for Cyber Insurance to Guard Against Future Cyber Attacks

The Baltimore Board of Estimates has approved a $20 million insurance plan to help protect the city against a repeat cyber attack.

The plan will provide benefits including an incident response team, digital data recovery and network security that could prevent a future attack, says a news report.

The term of the coverage is one year, however, Lester Davis, a spokesman for Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young, said the expectation is the city will maintain cyber insurance in future years, as well.

In May, hackers froze thousands of city computers and demanded $76,000 in bitcoin as ransom. The city opted not to pay the ransom. The attack crippled many systems, disrupting employees’ email service, halting water billing and suspending real estate transactions. In total, the attack cost the city $18 million.

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