Government officials said private data isn’t stored on the systems that were affected, and that no social security or other personal information was compromised.

A ransomware attack is often software code that holds a user’s computer hostage until a “ransom” fee is paid. Ransomware often infiltrates computers as a self-replicating malware that duplicates itself to spread to uninfected computers.

This isn’t Georgia’s first ransomware attack.

Back in March 2018, the City of Atlanta was hit with ransomware that significantly disrupted government operations. In that case, Atlanta officials rejected the idea to pay the $50,000 ransom, ended up costing the city millions of dollars to recover from the incident.

In March, Georgia’s Jackson County paid hackers a $400,000 ransom payment to restore computer systems.

And currently, on Monday morning, the third city in Florida has been attacked by hackers demanding payment to restore servers. Key Biscayne joins Riviera Beach and Lake City in having its computer systems infected by ransomware after it identified a data security breach last week. In all three cities, the ransomware entered the network through an employee opening up a web link that allowed it to be uploaded.

Paying hackers to unlock ransomware isn’t advised for local governments because there’s no guarantee that a decryption key will be provided.

In Baltimore’s ransomware attack in May, hackers wanted approximately $80,00 in Bitcoin – and city officials followed protocol by rejecting the payment – has ended up costing taxpayers $18 million to restore systems.