Video: Tennessee Sheriff's Office Pays Ransom for Case Files

VIDEO: Tennessee Sheriff's Office Pays Ransom for Case Files

Officials with the Dickson (Tenn.) County Sheriff's Office said they had to pay a ransom after malware locked them out of thousands of their case files, reports WTVF .

"Every sort of document that you could develop in an investigation was in that folder. There was a total of 72,000 files," said Detective Jeff McCliss, the agency's IT director.

McCliss said in late October, a member of the Sheriff's Office was streaming local radio station WDKN when they mistakenly clicked on a rotating ad that secretly installed vicious malware called "Cryptowall," which locked the agency out of their files unless they paid a ransom of bitcoins worth $500.

McCliss said after consulting with the TBI, FBI and even the military they realized the only way to get back their precious case files was to pay.

"It's a bad feeling. It's a very bad feeling to be the victim instead of the investigator," he said.