Garfield County Pays Ransom to Hackers

Officials in one Utah county say they were forced to a pay a ransom to hackers who locked some of their computer systems.

Officials in Garfield County say someone opened a phishing email earlier this year, causing a ransomware attack that locked computers in both the Assessor's and the Recorder's offices.

After reporting the incident to the FBI and using pen and paper to record transactions for several weeks, the county decided to pay the Bitcoin ransom to regain access to their computers last month.

The FBI says other Utah communities have also been victims of ransomware attacks, with at least one other city paying to regain control of their computers.