By Byron V. Acohido

Cyber criminals who specialize in plundering local governments and school districts are in their heyday.

Related: How ransomware became a scourge

Ransomware attacks and email fraud have spiked to record levels across the U.S. in each of the past three years, and a disproportionate number of the hardest hit organizations were local public agencies.

Lucy Security, a security training company based in Zug, Switzerland that works with many smaller public entities, has been in the thick of this onslaught. The company’s software is used to run public servants and corporate employees through mock cyberattack training sessions. There’s an obvious reason smaller public entities have become a favorite target of cybercriminals: most are run on shoestring budgets and corners tend to get cut in IT security, along with everything else operationally.

I had a chance to discuss this with Lucy Security Inc. CEO Colin Bastable at RSA 2020. Another factor I never thought about, until meeting with Bastable, is that public servants typically possess a can-do work ethic. This can make them particularly susceptible to social engineering trickery, the trigger for online extortion and fraud campaigns, Bastable told me.

For a drill down on my full interview with Bastable, give the accompanying podcast a listen. Here are the key takeaways:

Simple, lucrative fraud

What happened in the state of Texas earlier last January is a microcosm of intensifying pressure all local agencies face from motivated hackers and scammers.

Fraudsters did enough online intelligence gathering on the Manor Independent School District, in Manor, Texas, to figure out which vendors were in line to receive large bank transfers as part of the school district spending the proceeds of a large school bond. They also studied the employees who handled the transactions.