Helen Pidd and Gregory Robinson report: A council in the north-east of England has admitted that it has suffered a cyber-attack that has disabled its IT servers for the past three weeks, leaving it with a steep bill and concerns among residents that their local government infrastructure is “in danger of collapse”. One Redcar and…
Category: Government Sector
Ryuk Ransomware Attack in Florida Forces Prosecutor to Drop Charges in Drug Cases
Silviu Stahie reports: A ransomware attack against the police department in Stuart, Florida last year had an unexpected consequence; the police officers had to drop several cases after losing important evidence. Read about it on Hot for Security. The story was first reported by WPTV.
How a Hacker’s Mom Broke Into a Prison—and the Warden’s Computer
Lily Hay Newman reports: John Strand breaks into things for a living. As a penetration tester, he gets hired by organizations to attack their defenses, helping reveal weaknesses before actual bad guys find them. Normally, Strand embarks on these missions himself, or deploys one of his experienced colleagues at Black Hills Information Security. But in…
UK: Ordnance Survey hacked, exposing 1,000 employees’ data
Robert Scammell reports: A hacker stole the personal data of 1,000 employees of the Ordnance Survey, the government-owned mapping agency for Britain, Verdict can reveal. The agency, which produces digital and paper maps for businesses and consumers, confirmed the breach to Verdict but was unable to go into detail about the type of personal details that were compromised. Read…
Rabun County in Georgia thwarts apparent computer hacking attempt
Megan Broome reports: The county’s computer system was recently hit with what was thought to be ransomware, according to Darrin Giles, county administrator, in a phone interview Monday. Ransomware is a type of malicious software, or malware, designed to deny access to a computer system or data until a ransom is paid. Giles said that…
Mexico’s economy ministry hit by cyber attack
Adriana Barrera reports: Mexico’s economy ministry detected a cyber attack on some of its servers on Sunday but did not consider sensitive information to have been compromised, and beefed up safety measures, it said in a statement. It was the second high-profile cyber attack on the Mexican government after hackers demanded $5 million in bitcoin…