Tag Archive for: council

Dallas City Council receives update on May ransomware attack

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DALLAS — On Wednesday, details surrounding the ransomware attack that has plagued the City of Dallas since May started to come into focus.

According to an after-action report delivered at Dallas City Council, hackers used stolen online credentials to get into the city of Dallas’ system and steal files. Ultimately, the report said, a “small amount” of “sensitive data” was accessed. But, according to Dallas Chief Information Officer Brian Gardner, the majority of the data breached was “not sensitive.” 

Dallas information technology officials said hackers with a group called Royal began their attack on April 7. City officials said the hackers were able to connect to a city server and give themselves remote access to the system. Per the after-action report, Royal downloaded almost 1.2 terabytes of data through that server, and launched a ransomware attack in the early morning hours of May 3.

The after-action report said the attack was contained the very next day, on May 4.

Still, Royal’s attack shut down city servers and services for weeks. 

The after-action report itself comes four months after the attack after its presentation was delayed at previous council meetings.

The most sensitive information accessed included medical and health insurance information, the report said. Hackers were also able to acquire social security numbers, the report revealed.

In August, the city said, some 27,000 letters that were mailed to people impacted by the attack informed them of the leaked information, and offered them two years of free credit monitoring. 

“Our investigation to date has indicated that some of your sensitive personal information was impacted,” the letter read. “The information included your name, address, SSN, Date of Birth, Insurance Information, Clinical Information, Claims Information, Diagnosis.”

WFAA spoke to people impacted by the hack, including Dallas Police Association President Mike Mata. Mata said his biggest concern about the hack is the lack of transparency from the city surrounding it.

“The city should have taken proactive steps in the very beginning, rather than having to be pushed for it,” Mata said. “We advocated years ago to separate our databases from…

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Dallas City Council approves $8.6 million in payments for ransomware attack response

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The Dallas City Council on Wednesday approved nearly $8.6 million in payments for services related to the ransomware attack earlier this year, including credit monitoring for potential identity theft victims.

The council asked no questions about the payments before unanimously approving the agenda item. The names of the vendors receiving the money, how much each vendor is getting, and what specific services were provided were not laid out in any publicly available documents. A list of what the money is being set aside for was provided to The Dallas Morning News by Deputy City Manager Jon Fortune after the council meeting.

Fortune told the council during the meeting that the city mailed about 27,000 letters starting last week notifying mostly current and former employees, such as retirees, that their data was exposed and that the city is offering credit monitoring because of it.

The $8.6 million is coming from two different city reserve funds to pay invoices to vendors for new hardware, software, consultants, monitoring and other professional services described as emergency purchases made because of the cyberattack, according to city documents.

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According to the city, the money is going toward:

– New storage devices, servers, laptops, desktop computers and mobile dispatch computers for police and fire vehicles to replace ones that were compromised or damaged in the ransomware attack.

– Temporary staff who aided in the city’s recovery efforts.

– Credit monitoring services, identity protection, call center and notification support.

– Forensic accounting.

– Recovery and restoration services for city applications and systems.

– Installation for new hardware and equipment.

– New and additional software licenses to enhance the city’s cybersecurity, response and recovery efforts.

The city is planning to file insurance claims and put any reimbursement received into its general fund contingency reserve, which is 65% of the funding source for these invoice payments. The rest is from the city’s liability reserve fund.

The payment approval comes three months after the city announced being hit with a ransomware attack on May 3.

It…

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Hayward City Council to discuss ransomware attack

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Bay City News and Michael Thomas

(BCN) — The Hayward City Council will hold a special meeting Thursday night to ratify a proclamation of a local emergency made Sunday after a ransomware attack breached the city’s computer systems and networks over the weekend.

Hayward is continuing to “assess and recover” from the cybersecurity event that occurred early Sunday morning in which “intruders attempted to disrupt and hold hostage aspects and components of our computer systems and networks,” the city said.

A ransomware attack occurs when someone encrypts files and demands ransom to decrypt them. The encryption makes the files and the systems that rely on them unusable, according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Thursday’s meeting is at 7 p.m. and will be in-person only at council chambers, located in Hayward City Hall, 777 B Street, conference room 2A.

By declaring an emergency, the city has greater flexibility in executive decision-making and deployment of city employees, and can access and acquire equipment, supplies and other resources needed, the city said Wednesday. The declaration also can “be a prerequisite to and streamline” reimbursement of certain costs associated with the response, according to the city manager.

Public access to the City of Hayward’s website was mostly restored Tuesday, but aspects of the city’s site are still being gradually restored, the city said, and visitors to the site who encounter non-functioning links are encouraged to report them at [email protected].

Hayward’s emergency numbers and systems were never affected, the city said, nor were water, sewer, or other municipal operations.

“To date, we have found no evidence of a breach or theft of private personal or confidential information related to any current or former City employee, community member or other member of the public,” said the city. “If that were to change, the City will contact the affected individual or individuals directly.”

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After ransomware attack, Dallas City Council approves ‘threat and anomaly detection system’

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Almost two months after a ransomware attack disrupted City of Dallas online services, council members voted to approve a multi-million-dollar contract for upgraded cybersecurity software.

Council members approved the $3.9 million measure without comment. The agreement between the city and Texas based IT consulting group Netsync, was tucked away in the council’s lengthy consent agenda.

The contract authorizes the city manager to pay Netsync immediately after council approval. Council members also discussed the ongoing ransomware attack that started in early May, among other issues, in executive session during Wednesday’s meeting.

There was no public discussion of the agreement during Wednesday’s meeting, but according to the approved item, the funds are for support of a threat and anomaly detection system for” the city’s IT department.

On May 3, the city was hit by the hacker group Royal, which impacted a number of city systems. Those included the Dallas Police Department, Dallas Fire Rescue, 911 and 311 — the city’s nonemergency service.

Other city services brought down as a result of the attack were the Dallas Water Utilities department, the municipal court building and the public library system. For the duration of the attack — which the city is still recovering from — officials maintained that there was “no indication that customer information…has been leaked from City systems.”

The assurances came after the hacker group posted a message on their blog threatening the release of “tons of personal information of employees (phones, addresses, credit cards, SSNs, passports)…” the post said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released a warning about the Royal hacker group in early March.

Got a tip? Email Nathan Collins at [email protected]. You can follow Nathan on Twitter @nathannotforyou.

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