Cyberworld has particularly seen a rise in ransomware activity attacking public entities in the ongoing year. From the cryptovirological attack on Colorado’s transportation system to the municipal breakdown in Atlanta city, ransomware operators have wreaked havoc among the public sector entities. Some targeted organizations even paid extortion money to the attackers for ransomware removal.
In the most recent such incident, it has been reported that Hidalgo County, Texas has recently suffered a ransomware attack. The attackers actually targeted the Hidalgo County Sheriff Office (HCSO) with the cryptovirological strain. Many details regarding the attack are still missing. For instance, the amount attackers asked for ransomware removal is not known yet. Similarly, we don’t know what ransomware strain was used in the attack.
Negligence might be the reason
According to the reports, ransomware targeted a computer device in the east substation of the sheriff’s office. The affected computer was one of only two HCSO’s devices that are part of the office’s Internet-based network.
It is important to mention here that these computers didn’t have restrictions similar to the devices operating on the internal server. For instance, people can’t use Facebook or say Craigslist on the internal devices. However, such restrictions were not placed on the affected computer. This implies that compromised web domains might have been used by the attackers to deliver the payload of the cryptovirological script on the targeted computer.
It has also been reported that the county administration dealt with ransomware removal on its own without paying a dime to the attackers and the affected computer was restored within a week. Experts think that Hidalgo County’s digital system has avoided a major cyber breakdown because of its limited internet connectivity and other implemented restrictions. If that was not the case, then the damage from that attack would have been much greater.
