Another one bites the dust. According to the latest reports, this time the Crawford County (Robinson, IL) has gotten into the crosshairs of a ransomware. The ransomware managed to lock the department’s data and demanded to pay a ransom for ransomware removal. So far, the name of the ransomware was not found out. Similarly, the ransom amount has not been revealed yet. Early investigations reveal that hacked data consisted of the last 30-day details.
According to one of the officials, Fayrene Wright, the accounting department was hit. It is believed that personal and sensitive information of the county officials has not been stolen or misused. After the ransomware entered, it managed to lock various portions of data. This data included accounts receivable and accounts payable, rendering the company unable to process its accounting processes
The payroll system was also wrecked. The department payroll system used encryption for the generation of salary checks. Factors like deductions, tax, and other critical factors were processed to generate an appropriate salary for each official.
Since the payroll system maintained the processing of last month’s salaries, the department had to adapt. This meant that the department went back to the good old days –– writing checks on a piece of paper –– that existed before the rapid digitization. As a result, the management had to scratch their heads along with the auditors. Collaborated efforts were enacted in order to process and generate salaries for each employee. All the relevant factors that were used by the payroll systems were taken into account.
Fortunately, the department received assistance and support from the county employees. County employees understood the severity and intricacies of the event. A county clerk assured that the ransomware was unable to access the records of voters. This was because the server that stored those records was not breached in the attack.
