Riviera Beach Water Utility ransomware

In May 2019 the city of Riviera Beach, Florida — operator of the local water utility — was infected with ransomware delivered via a phishing email opened by a police-department employee. After three weeks of failed recovery attempts the city council voted unanimously to pay the $600,000 ransom in Bitcoin.

City email, payment processing, and the water utility's billing systems were disrupted for over three weeks. Treatment operations continued throughout the incident.