Cyber ​​attack on Kansas town affects email, phone and payment systems

A cyberattack on a small Kansas town disrupted the government’s email, telephone and online payment systems.

Pittsburg — home to about 20,000 residents along the border with Missouri and Oklahoma — said it discovered the incident over the weekend. The attack caused a computer outage that limited government systems, but did not affect 911 dispatch or other public services.

“While these types of situations have become all too common nationwide, we recognize the importance of this event and have taken swift action to address it. » said City Manager Daron Hall. “Our full assessment is ongoing and could take several weeks. In the meantime, we are committed to providing the highest level of services to our community.

The city’s incident response team “took proactive steps to protect the city’s data and network systems” while hiring forensic experts to “fully understand the scope and implications” of the attack.

Municipal operations will continue and public security services remained operational despite the attack. The city did not respond to requests for comment on whether this was a ransomware attack and whether a ransom would be paid.

No group took credit for the attack. A medical Center And wastewater treatment plants in Kansas have already faced cybersecurity incidents over the past three years.

Officials at Pittsburg State University, located in the city’s south side, said the school was not directly affected by the attack.

The last in a long series

Over the past week, several municipalities All over the United States have faced attacks from hackers or ransomware gangs. Hinds County, Mississippi, has spent the past week struggling to recover from a ransomware incident this disrupted government services.

The attack has embarrassed the ability of home buyers and sellers to do business because they do not have access to county records.

County officials did not respond to requests for comment and the Mississippi Department of Public Safety declined to answer questions about the incident because it is not the lead agency involved in the recovery process. ‘attack.

The FBI, which officials say is leading the charge, declined to comment on when government services would be restored. Hinds County is home to the state capital, Jackson, and is home to more than 240,000 residents.

Only one state after Pittsburgh, St. Louis County, was thrown into chaos last week after facing its own cyberattack. The postal dispatch from Saint-Louis reported that the county’s Regional Judicial Information System – known as REJIS and also used by counties in Kansas and Illinois – suffered an incident that brought down the system, affecting all police officers, jails, courts municipal and county lawyers.

The county was forced to arrest and release those jailed using paper records and county officials. wrote on Facebook that all court cases scheduled in St. Louis County Municipal Court were canceled for several days.

County Executive Sam Page on Friday sent a letter to the St. Louis County Council, explaining that $5 million was needed from the county’s emergency fund to “support necessary measures to protect the county from future cybersecurity attacks.”

“As you know, this week we were informed by the Regional Judicial Information System (REJIS) of a cybersecurity event, which caused the County to shut down several of our servers. This closure has impacted our ability to serve several critical county functions involving the Police Department, Department of Justice Services, Municipal Court, County Counsel’s Office, and District Attorney’s Office, all of which serve important functions. critical public safety functions,” Page said.

“This event caused us to lose access to critical applications that are being recovered by several county teams. This is an event that we hoped would not happen and could have been much worse.

Page went on to note that “the cost of a temporary shutdown of county government far exceeds the cost of these measures” and that this was the time to “take necessary steps that can no longer be ignored.”

The council was expected to consider the proposal Monday.

The Federal Ministry of Homeland Security warned last week that ransomware gangs are expected to bring in nearly $1 billion in extortion ransoms in 2023 due to an endless number of attacks on private companies and government organizations at the state and federal levels.

Jonathan Greig

Jonathan Greig is a breaking news reporter at Recorded Future News. Jonathan has worked as a journalist around the world since 2014. Before returning to New York, he worked for media outlets in South Africa, Jordan and Cambodia. He previously covered cybersecurity at ZDNet and TechRepublic.