Bitcoin ransomware blamed for New Orleans ‘state of emergency’

Ransomware hackers have forced the city of New Orleans to declare a state of emergency, TechCrunch reports. Last Friday, officials reportedly spotted a suspicious uptick in activity in the early morning, particularly phishing attempts. They confirmed an attack was underway approximately three hours later, and promptly shut down affected servers and computers. A declaration of a state of emergency has been filed with the Civil District Court in connection with today’s cyber security event.