News Tribune reports: La Salle County officials Friday morning affirmed workers continue to restore the county’s computer network “with its first priority being public safety” after a ransomware attack this week. “All county offices remain open and are operating in lieu of their limited ability to access certain documents and records,” the statement read. “The…
Category: Government Sector
Hackers shut down Rwandan government data centre
James Barton reports: A Rwandan data centre that hosts servers related to the country’s government has been brought offline by hackers. The centre, which also hosted private sector servers, was left offline for hours by a cyber attack on 18th February which blocked it from receiving traffic. This resulted in the majority of government websites –…
UK: Ransomware attack leaves council facing huge bill to restore services
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…
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…