According to local media, Wayne County government has been dealing with a ransomware cyber attack that has taken many services offline since yesterday.
“The county information technology team is aware of a cyber incident targeting some internal systems. We are currently investigating the scope of the incident with our cybersecurity partners which include the FBI and Michigan State Police,” county spokesman Doda Lulgjuraj said.
The full scope of the cyberattack is not fully understood, but for example, at the Sheriff’s Office, jail inmates could not be bonded out as the servers were comprised, and defense attorneys said they couldn’t schedule visits with their clients following the hack.
The Register of Deeds Office closed due to the hack so residents weren’t able to record real estate sales or obtain property records. Furthermore, the Treasurer’s Office reported that tax payments could not be collected online and needed to be made in person.
It is not clear who is behind the attack, but a source says the hacker has made a ransom demand.
Steve Hahn, Executive VP, BullWall:
“In the last two years Cities and States have moved up as one of the top targets of Ransomware gangs. Most of these gangs are Russian based and as such they view their attacks as a financial element but also as vehicles to disrupt essential services, seed chaos, exacerbate inflation and cause maximum loss of life. When cities, states or counties are hit, essential services like 911 are often impacted and often times, like as was the case for the City of Oakland, they will need to declare a state of emergency. The threat actor also knows that these government bodies do not have the people, staff or tools to stop their attacks. With enough patience and focus, they can take down cities and state services all across the US. Hundreds have been hit in the last two years alone.
“As we head into the holiday season, threat actors will increase attacks dramatically. A vast majority of attacks take place during off hours and holidays so IT staffs have less ability to respond. We expect to see an unprecedented level of attacks as conflicts continue to rise and tensions with Russia continue to increase.
“Too often Cities and States think they can prevent these attacks just with traditional security tools like gateways, firewalls and Endpoint Security. The reality is a determined threat actor with patience will find the crack that gets them in. This is why we’ve seen a 200% increase in successful ransomware attacks in the last two years and also why cities and states need to adopt an “when not if” strategy to these events and understand how to contain and recover from them quickly to minimize disruption.”
The phrase “stop the madness” comes to mind as it is madness that we keep having situations like these when organizations should be taking precautions to not get pwned. This honestly needs to end as the continued rampage of threat actors pwning all the things is not something that we can allow to become part of our everyday lives.
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This entry was posted on October 4, 2024 at 8:43 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Hacked. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Wayne County Pwned In A Ransomware Attack
According to local media, Wayne County government has been dealing with a ransomware cyber attack that has taken many services offline since yesterday.
“The county information technology team is aware of a cyber incident targeting some internal systems. We are currently investigating the scope of the incident with our cybersecurity partners which include the FBI and Michigan State Police,” county spokesman Doda Lulgjuraj said.
The full scope of the cyberattack is not fully understood, but for example, at the Sheriff’s Office, jail inmates could not be bonded out as the servers were comprised, and defense attorneys said they couldn’t schedule visits with their clients following the hack.
The Register of Deeds Office closed due to the hack so residents weren’t able to record real estate sales or obtain property records. Furthermore, the Treasurer’s Office reported that tax payments could not be collected online and needed to be made in person.
It is not clear who is behind the attack, but a source says the hacker has made a ransom demand.
Steve Hahn, Executive VP, BullWall:
“In the last two years Cities and States have moved up as one of the top targets of Ransomware gangs. Most of these gangs are Russian based and as such they view their attacks as a financial element but also as vehicles to disrupt essential services, seed chaos, exacerbate inflation and cause maximum loss of life. When cities, states or counties are hit, essential services like 911 are often impacted and often times, like as was the case for the City of Oakland, they will need to declare a state of emergency. The threat actor also knows that these government bodies do not have the people, staff or tools to stop their attacks. With enough patience and focus, they can take down cities and state services all across the US. Hundreds have been hit in the last two years alone.
“As we head into the holiday season, threat actors will increase attacks dramatically. A vast majority of attacks take place during off hours and holidays so IT staffs have less ability to respond. We expect to see an unprecedented level of attacks as conflicts continue to rise and tensions with Russia continue to increase.
“Too often Cities and States think they can prevent these attacks just with traditional security tools like gateways, firewalls and Endpoint Security. The reality is a determined threat actor with patience will find the crack that gets them in. This is why we’ve seen a 200% increase in successful ransomware attacks in the last two years and also why cities and states need to adopt an “when not if” strategy to these events and understand how to contain and recover from them quickly to minimize disruption.”
The phrase “stop the madness” comes to mind as it is madness that we keep having situations like these when organizations should be taking precautions to not get pwned. This honestly needs to end as the continued rampage of threat actors pwning all the things is not something that we can allow to become part of our everyday lives.
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This entry was posted on October 4, 2024 at 8:43 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Hacked. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.