Cyberattacks on local governments are on the rise -- and they’re becoming more sophisticated. The latest case in Baltimore, where the city is still struggling to restore critical networks more than three weeks after being hacked, could be a harbinger of things to come.     

Already this year, at least 24 municipalities have reported ransomware attacks, including Amarillo, Texas; Augusta, Maine; Imperial County, Calif.; Garfield County, Utah; Greenville, N.C.; and Albany, N.Y. That’s on pace to surpass last year’s total of 53, according to data collected by the tech company Recorded Future.

“As city governments become more sophisticated themselves and rely more on AI [artificial intelligence] machine learning ... that creates more vulnerabilities in the network,” says Carl Ghattas, a former executive assistant director for the FBI’s national security branch and now an executive director for Ernst & Young’s government consulting practice. “Combined with the fact that actors are becoming more sophisticated themselves, these types of attacks are likely to continue if not increase.”

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