Ransomware Riddles Two City Systems, and Indiana’s National Guard
An unknown ransomware variant infected the City of Muscatine, located in Iowa, on October 10th. The cyber attack impacted multiple servers and since has been isolated. The local IT staff and federal officials are working to remediate city systems. It remains unclear if the city plans to pay the undisclosed ransom demands.
Another ransomware attack, which has not been proven to be related to the City of Muscatine, hit the City of West Haven in Connecticut. The ransomware variant has not been disclosed, but it did infect 23 city servers. Even though the off-site backup systems were unharmed, city officials approved a $2,000 ransom payment. Once the transaction was processed, the hackers provided the tools to unlock the city’s systems. IT staff continues to work toward getting systems back to 100% capacity.
Ransomware also riddled a non-military server from Indiana’s National Guard. According to officials, the infected server contained information on military and civilian personnel. The number of people impacted is unknown, but they will be notified in a timely manner. Indiana National Guard said in a press release,
“Regardless of whether or not the server contents were compromised, our chief concern is for the welfare of any affected personnel, which is why we will notify employees who may have had their personal information compromised and are proactively taking actions to ensure a similar event does not occur again.”
Other Ransomware Attacks
For a list of ransomware attacks that have already taken place in 2018, you may click here. We have also created a map, see below, of the ransomware attacks that have taken place in the U.S.
