A water company in Jacksonville, North Carolina, still recovering from Hurricane Florence is now faced with a new problem: a ransomware attack that has crippled its core computing systems.

The Onslow Water and Sewer Authority said in a statement Monday that it was first attacked by Emotet malware on Oct. 4. That infection installed the Ryuk ransomware Saturday, encrypting files and demanding payment.

Ryuk ransomware first appeared in August, shares code with the Hermes malware and according to some reports may be linked to the Lazarus Group APT, a group of hackers believed to be acting on behalf of the North Korean government.

The utility has contacted authorities, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and has said it will not pay the ransom because it “will not negotiate with criminals nor bow to their demands.”

Onslow Water said no customer data had been stolen in regards to the ransomware attack, but it didn’t address the initial Emotet malware infection. Emotet is best known as a banking trojan that exists to steal financial data and isn’t known as a gateway for subsequent ransomware infection.

Caroline Seymour, director of product marketing at Zerto Ltd., told SiliconANGLE that even though the organization has chosen not to pay the ransom, it will have to rebuild its computing infrastructure, which she said is a slow, expensive process.

“A recent analyst study determined that, like the Onslow Water and Sewer Authority, 50 percent of surveyed organizations have suffered an unrecoverable data event in the last three years, and while preventing these attacks is not always possible, diminishing the threat is,” Seymour said.

It’s critical, she added, to take “a more dynamic, modern approach” to business continuity and disaster recovery.

“Solutions utilizing continuous data protection and hybrid cloud DR can help organizations like the Onslow Water and Sewer Authority better manage their IT infrastructures and achieve IT resilience,” Seymour added.

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