Presque Isle City Police Department was one of handful of police departments across the country that have recently been hacked by a ransomware group. The New York Times is saying a group associated with Avaddon Ransomware threatened to release department records on the dark web if demands were not met within 240 hours. The breach is believed to have occurred on April 18.  

Say what now? 

The hackers sent a statement to the Presque Isle Police Department saying If this does not happen before the time counter expires, we will leak valuable company documents.” The group has reportedly released information from a 2019 domestic violence incident report. Included were the names of the victims, suspect, personal information, as well as details about the incident.  

Ransomware attacks and breaches are becoming more common. A ransomware attack can encrypt information and "hold it" until ransom demands are met. There are instances in which the information encrypted can be inaccessible. It is believed that the Presque Isle Police Department hack is part of a breach that infiltrated upwards of a dozen departments across the United States.  

FYI - Babuk is not a new search engine:

The dark web gang believed to be involved in this latest breach is the group known as Babuk. The FBI has been working with the departments that have been hacked and are working to end this trend as soon as possible. There have now been 26 government agencies hit by ransomware since the start of the year.  

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Stay ahead of the outlaws  

Ransomware attacks have become the new way of doing business in the wild west of the dark web over the last decade. With the advances of technology and information storage, we are all vulnerable on the web because essentially all of our information is now out there and can be discovered. This hack is a good reminder that you should regularly be changing passwords and other information you have offered up online.  

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Stacker used data from the 2020 County Health Rankings to rank every state's average life expectancy from lowest to highest. The 2020 County Health Rankings values were calculated using mortality counts from the 2016-2018 National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. Census 2019 American Community Survey and America's Health Rankings Senior Report 2019 data were also used to provide demographics on the senior population of each state and the state's rank on senior health care, respectively.

Read on to learn the average life expectancy in each state.

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