healthcare, and
critical
infrastructure are on the rise, with the latest victim being
the state government of Louisiana.
The state government of Louisiana was hit by a large-scale
coordinated ransomware attack yesterday, which forced the state to
take several state agency servers offline, including government
websites, email systems, and other internal applications, to
mitigate the risk of the malware’s infection from spreading.
The Monday’s ransomware attack resulted in the subsequent
shutdown of a majority of large state agencies, including the
Office of the Governor, the Office of Motor Vehicles, the
Department of Health, the Department of Children and Family
Services, and the Department of Transportation and Development,
among others.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards revealed the incident in a series
of tweets, saying that he had activated the state’s cybersecurity
team in response to the cyber attack and that the shutdown of
services was due to the state’s response and not due to the attack.
“Today, we activated the state’s cybersecurity team in response to
an attempted ransomware attack that is affecting some state
servers. The Office of Technology Services identified a
cybersecurity threat that affected some, but not all state
servers,” Governor Edwards said[4].
“The service interruption was due to OTS’ aggressive response to
prevent additional infection of state servers and not due to the
attempted ransomware attack. Online services started to come back
online this afternoon, though full restoration may take several
days.”
locking them up so users can’t access them without paying a ransom
amount, which they demand typically in Bitcoin to give the user
access to those files again.
Edwards noted that the Louisiana State Police and several
federal agencies are already investigating the cyberattack that
impacted nearly every major state agency.
this year. In July 2019, Louisiana declared a state of emergency
following a coordinated ransomware outbreak that disrupted nearly
half a dozen school districts.
Governor Edwards also confirmed that Monday’s cyber attack is
similar to the July’s ransomware attack.
“OTS has confirmed that this attempted ransomware attack is similar
to the ransomware targeted at local school districts and government
entities across the country this summer,” Governor Edwards said.
used in the latest attack, how the ransomware got into the state’s
systems, and how much amount the attackers have demanded as a
ransom.
However, the governor has assured that there is “no anticipated
data loss” and that “the state did not pay a ransom.”
References
- ^
government
(thehackernews.com) - ^
healthcare
(thehackernews.com) - ^
critical infrastructure
(thehackernews.com) - ^
said
(twitter.com)
Read more http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheHackersNews/~3/CSqaYmIYmQM/louisiana-ransomware-attack.html