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Cartel
Intel inside Your sensitive data outside
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Chilliwack, BC

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Cartel

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Ransomware Attack Hits Local Governments In Texas

A coordinated ransomware attack has affected at least 20 local government entities in Texas, the Texas Department of Information Resources said. It would not release information about which local governments have been affected.

The department said the Texas Division of Emergency Management is coordinating support from other state agencies through the Texas State Operations Center at DPS headquarters in Austin.

DIR said the Texas Military Department and the Texas A&M University Systems' Cyber-Response and Security Operations Center teams are deploying resources to "the most critically impacted jurisdictions."

»www.kut.org/post/ransomw ··· ts-texas
InternetJeff
I'm your huckleberry.
join:2001-09-25
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InternetJeff

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Somebody clicked on a phishing email. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
HELLFIRE
MVM
join:2009-11-25

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to Cartel
A postmortem to this would be nice, if only to learn from this screwup. I'll reserve any judgements / pronouncements till then... especially the "do/n't pay the ransom"
debate, we've beaten that horse more than enough times on DSLR.

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HELLFIRE

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MVM

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»dir.texas.gov/View-About ··· x?id=210 -- Aug 17 update from Texas as to the state of things, FWIW.

»www.theregister.co.uk/20 ··· somware/ -- TheReg picked this up as well with a few more details
quote:
In response to an inquiry from The Register, a spokesperson for the DIR said the agency has not named the affected entities or the attack vector used. Reports have suggested attack employed the Sodinokibi ransomware; the DIR declined to confirm this.
quote:
Ransomware attacks have hit government entities in all US states except for Delaware and Kentucky, cybersecurity biz Recorded Future said in May. Examples of such incidents have occurred in Florida and Maryland, as well as cities in other countries, such as Johannesburg, South Africa last month. The security shop said ransomware attacks on state and local governments are on the rise, though it conceded that its metrics may be incomplete because such incidents are not necessarily reported.
Hoping more information is released as this is good learning all around.

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HELLFIRE

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Interesting update to this saga -- »text.npr.org/s.php?sId=752695554
quote:
Two cities so far have come forward to say their computer systems were affected. Officials in Borger in the Texas Panhandle, said the attack has affected city business and financial operations. Birth and death certificates are not available online, and the city can't accept utility payments from any of its 13,25o residents. "Responders have not yet established a time-frame for when full, normal operations will be restored," city officials said.

Keene, Texas, a city of some 6,100 people outside Fort Worth, was also hit, officials announced. The city's government is also unable to process utility payments.

Keene Mayor Gary Heinrich told NPR that the hackers broke into the information technology software used by the city and managed by an outsourced company, which he said also supports many of the other municipalities targeted.

"Well, just about everything we do at City Hall is impacted, Heinrich said.

Heinrich said the hackers want a collective ransom of $2.5 million.

"They got into our software provider, the guys who run our IT systems," Heinrich said. "A lot of folks in Texas use providers to do that, because we don't have a staff big enough to have IT in house."
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