Yes but the attack surface would be much smaller. I think most cities have in-house IT employees running everything. Someone on the same network as a secretary has shell access, in other words. This is how most businesses were operating their tech 20 yrs ago, but government is always 30 yrs behind.
It doesn't need to cost a lot. What does a city need? Email, calendar, office apps, VoIP, file sharing, static website (basically GSuite). All of these have open source Linux solutions that cost nothing.
RedHat, Palantir, or some other would be happy to take this contract. It's ok to use contractors to kill people but not run computers?
Maybe the federal/state government should offer some of their generic services and allow wrapping for smaller cities.
This assumes at least one higher government body has technical chops and could reasonably extend their codebase. The cost could be paid by the equivalent of what would go to the ransom
It doesn't need to cost a lot. What does a city need? Email, calendar, office apps, VoIP, file sharing, static website (basically GSuite). All of these have open source Linux solutions that cost nothing.
RedHat, Palantir, or some other would be happy to take this contract. It's ok to use contractors to kill people but not run computers?