Louisiana spent $2.3M on cyberattacks; it’ll cost millions more to prevent them in the future

While Louisiana didn’t pay a ransom demanded by hackers who launched a cyberattack against state government servers last fall, the state has paid $2.3 million responding to that and other cyberattacks across the state over the past year.

The Division of Administration, which oversees the technology office that dispatches staffers throughout the state to respond to various cyberattacks, spent the money on five incidents over the past year, according to figures provided by the division.

Jacques Berry, an administration spokesman, said the vast majority of the costs were from paying for staffers to who went to various school districts, state agencies and New Orleans to help reimage computers afflicted with ransomware.