Lake George Land Conservancy endures 'ransomware' attack

BOLTON LANDING | Following a recent ransomware attack, the Lake George Land Conservancy is beefing up the security of its servers and other aspects of its computer system, its CEO has announced. The organization is a land trust that partners with New York, various foundations, environmental organizations, and individual donors to preserve land around Lake George and protect the lake's watershed. The Conservancy handles many dozens of donations annually, totaling millions of dollars. Jamie Brown, the Conservancy's executive director, said in a letter posted on its website Oct. 7 that the organization's employees learned about the security breach on Sept. 23 — They found their computer files encrypted, with an anonymous hacker demanding a ransom to unlock their digital information. According to news reports, the hackers demanded a substantial payment in bitcoins for the files to be restored. The threat, however, was rebuffed by the Conservancy because prior to the attack, the data had been backed up, so the information could be retrieved, he said in the letter. "We immediately took steps to address the breach, secure our data, and determine the extent of organizational data that may have been compromised," Brown said. He said that the infected files were deleted and that the computers and servers that were attacked were "cleaned" and reloaded with the data. He said that the "sensitive data" including the Conservancy donors' financial information had been stored on a secure, cloud-based server that wasn't attacked. "Nevertheless, we are working to ensure that no sensitive information was on our internal server that was breached, and if any was there, exactly what information was affected and what steps are needed to remediate the issue," Brown continued, pledging to update members of the Conservancy and its donors when more information was available. "We are continuing to monitor and assess the situation and working closely with our IT consultant to address the incident," Brown said.

Signup for our newsletter

Lake George Land Conservancy endures 'ransomware' attack

COMPANY

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

SUBMISSION FORMS

BEYOND THE NEWS