Washington State Department of Transportation works to recover from cyberattack

The Washington State Department of Transportation is recovering from a cyberattack that caused a range of problems for local ferries and apps used for maps.

The problems began Tuesday morning when the department’s website, cameras and app went down. The department’s IT team began working on the problem and launched an investigation.

Everything from travel maps to traffic cameras, ferry video feeds, mountain pass reports, online cargo permits and more were affected by the incident.

“The outages were caused by a security incident on Tuesday that appeared aimed at interrupting the flow of travel-related information. There is no indication that other systems have been affected and the cause is under investigation,” a spokesperson said in a statement posted on Facebook on Wednesday.

The department shared traffic closures and other vital information throughout the day on social media sites, with the website still down.

As of Thursday afternoon, parts of the website were back up and running, but a banner indicated that some pages were still unavailable.

“The traffic and pass cameras have been restored on our application but not on the website. Our travel map, mobile app, ferry monitoring and online cargo permits remain out of service. Work to restore them while safeguarding the systems continues,” they said. said.

“The cause of the incident remains under investigation. We know this disruption is frustrating, we rely on the same disrupted tools and systems on our own journeys. Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to resolve this issue.

Ferry schedules and mountain pass conditions are available on other platforms, but commercial vehicle permits must be submitted in person at one of 13 locations throughout the state.

The ministry did not respond to requests for comment on whether this was a ransomware incident.

This is far from the first time the state has faced widespread outages due to cyberattacks. Last year’s ransomware attack against Health CommonSpirit — one of the largest nonprofit health systems in the United States — affected three hospitals in the state.

Washington Department of Licensing faces a security breach of its computer system which exposed the personal data of hundreds of thousands of licensed professionals.

In March, a public transportation system serving parts of the state confirmed to Recorded Future News that a ransomware attack disrupted some of its systems.

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.