Tim Haddock reports: El Monte officials were working to replace City Hall computer servers Tuesday, April 6, in response to an “unauthorized access” to its system that caused the cancellation of Tuesday’s City Council meeting and has left the city without email access. Mayor Jessica Ancona said she expected the email system, which the city…
Category: Malware
Cyber Criminals Hone Attacks Against Schools
Kathleen E. Dion of Robinson & Cole writes: The FBI recently issued a Flash alert warning higher education institutions, k-12 schools, and seminaries about increasing numbers of ransomware attacks affecting the education industry. According to the warning, “[s]ince March 2020, the FBI has become aware of PYSA ransomware attacks against U.S. and foreign government entities,…
Technological University of Dublin victim of ransomware attack
The following is the text of an email reportedly sent to TU students. It was submitted anonymously to DataBreaches.net: Dear Students, The Tallaght campus has been subjected to a significant ransomware attack on our entire on-site ICT systems. The disruption to services occurred early on Thursday morning and the cause later identified as a ransomware…
National College of Ireland hit by ransomware attack
The National College of Ireland disclosed a cyberattack on April 3. Here is their most recent update: 6th April Update: Please note that all classes, assessments and induction sessions planned from today Tuesday 6th until this Thursday 8th April inclusive have been postponed and will be rescheduled for a later date. The college will issue a…
Brown University hit by cyberattack, some systems still offline
Sergiu Gatlan reports: Brown University, a private US research university, had to disable systems and cut connections to the data center after suffering a cyberattack on Tuesday. The Ivy League school’s IT staff said the attack focused on the university’s Windows-based devices and asked faculty and staff to switch to computers running other operating systems,…
As ransomware stalks the manufacturing sector, victims are still keeping quiet
Sean Lyngaas reports: Halvor Molland was asleep on a brisk night in Oslo, Norway’s capital, two years ago when his phone rang around 3 a.m. The computer servers of Norsk Hydro, the global aluminum producer where Molland is senior vice president for communications, had seized up as a crippling ransomware infection spread through the company’s networks….