It’s been a rough year for municipalities, and it’s only likely to get worse. While we read more and more reports of school districts becoming victims of ransomware attacks that delayed school openings or caused school closings, we have also read numerous reports of municipal police and law enforcement sites being defaced, and other municipal…
Category: U.S.
Ransomware attack against Ava School District fails, prompts strengthening of network
KY3 in Missouri reports: Ransom notes mysteriously shot out of printers in the Ava School District, demanding money to get information back. The district shut down its network as a precaution. Ava’s Superintendent doesn’t think a Ransomeware attack that hit early Thursday morning got any important data. Read more on KY3. It’s interesting to read…
Former Brownsville fire chief found not guilty on security breach charges
Martha Ibarra reports an update to a case previously reported on this site: Carlos Elizondo, Brownsville’s former fire chief, has been found not guilty on six counts of computer security breach. In October of 2017, Carlos Elizondo was suspended after he was accused of assessing the emergency reporting system for Brownsville fire without consent. Read…
Schumer calls for federal response to school cyberattacks
Justin Murphy reports: Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., called on Congress and the FBI on Wednesday to help school districts and other local government bodies threatened by increasingly common and sophisticated cyberattacks. The issue has put school districts across New York on guard, particularly after the Syracuse City School District was hit with ransomware this year. The district paid a $50,000…
Check-in computers stolen in Atlanta hold statewide voter data
Mark Niesse Arielle Kass report: Two computers that are used to check in voters were stolen from a west Atlanta precinct hours before polls opened Tuesday for a city school board election. [..] The express poll computers contain names, addresses, birth dates and driver’s license information for every voter in the state, said Richard Barron, Fulton…
Ramsey County data breach may have affected nearly 118,000 people
Shannon Prather reports: Nearly 118,000 people who receive Ramsey County services may have had some personal or health information compromised when hackers breached the county’s e-mail system in August 2018. County officials had initially said more than 500 people were affected last winter, but officials dramatically increased that number Tuesday after hiring an outside data…