Grant LaFleche reports: On Feb. 25, a sprawling cyberattack hit the City of Hamilton’s digital network, disrupting phone lines, emails, and databases the municipality uses every day. The crisis is almost two weeks old, and the city remains largely locked out of its systems. Phone lines remain down, council meetings have been postponed, registration to recreation programs…
Category: Government Sector
PA: Washington County pays $350,000 ransom after cyberattack
Chris Hoffman reports: The Washington County Board of Commissioners formally voted on Thursday on handling the recent cyberattack. Some have questioned the transparency of the process. The questions about transparency have been because of secret and emergency meetings. According to the solicitor, some of that was because of the deadlines set up by the cybercriminals….
Insurance provider for public servants abroad detects ‘cybersecurity incident’
Safiyah Marhnouj reports: The insurance provider for members of the Public Service Health Care Plan who are posted abroad or travelling says it recently detected a “cybersecurity incident” involving its systems, but hasn’t determined what information may have been accessed. MSH International Canada said it detected the incident on Feb. 9., and immediately paused services. Law enforcement was…
New Jersey law enforcement officers sue 118 data brokers for not removing personal info
Suzanne Smalley reports: Over the course of the last week, 118 class action lawsuits were filed against data brokers who allegedly failed to respond to requests from about 20,000 New Jersey law enforcement personnel asking to remove their personal information from the internet. New Jersey law prohibits the disclosure of home addresses and unpublished telephone…
US military notifies 20,000 of data breach after cloud email leak
Zack Whittaker The U.S. Department of Defense is notifying tens of thousands of individuals that their personal information was exposed in an email data spill last year. According to the breach notification letter sent out to affected individuals on February 1, the Defense Intelligence Agency — the DOD’s military intelligence agency — said, “numerous email…
Cyberattack shuts down Colorado public defender’s office
Shelly Bradbury reports: A cyberattack on the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender forced the agency to shut down its computer network, locking public defenders across the state out of critical work systems and prompting attorneys to seek delays in their court cases. Office spokesman James Karbach confirmed the breach in a statement Monday,…