Tag Archive for: Departments

TN Public Department’s computer systems suffer ransomware attack

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Tamil Nadu’s Public Department’s computers systems on Saturday suffered a ransomware attack – malware that employs encryption to hold a victim’s information at ransom – with attackers allegedly seeking ransom in cryptocurrency to release the malware.

Information Technology Secretary Neeraj Mittal confirmed that the ransomware attack, but said it was not critical. “We have isolated the affected systems that were under attack and are assessing the situation. We are trying to get back the access,” he said.

He declined to comment on the demand of nearly $2,000 as cryptocurrency as ransom to release the malware.

It is learnt that officials from Centre for Development of Advanced Computing and Computer Emergency Response Team are working to retrieve the systems.

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Hackers got into the New York Law Department’s secure files with just one password, Telecom News, ET Telecom

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By Ashley Southall, Benjamin Weiser and Dana Rubinstein

New York City’s Law Department holds some of the city’s most closely guarded secrets: evidence of police misconduct, the identities of young children charged with serious crimes, medical records and personal data for thousands of city employees.

But all it took for a hacker to infiltrate the 1,000-lawyer agency’s network early this month was one worker’s pilfered email password, according to a city official briefed on the matter.

Officials have not said how the intruder obtained the worker’s credentials, nor have they determined the scope of the attack. But the hack was enabled by the Law Department’s failure to implement a basic safeguard, known as multifactor authentication, more than two years after the city began requiring it, according to four people with knowledge of the legal agency’s system and the incident.

The intrusion interrupted city lawyers, disrupted court proceedings and thrust some of the department’s legal affairs into disarray. And on Tuesday morning, in a conference call, Mayor Bill de Blasio admonished the heads of city agencies to shore up their cyberdefenses or face consequences in the event their agencies were hacked, according to three people who were on the call.

The mayor’s warning to the agency heads comes 10 days after the city’s Cyber Command, created by de Blasio in 2017 to defend the city’s computer networks, detected unusual activity on the Law Department’s computer system.

The next afternoon, June 6, city officials have said, they removed the department’s computers from the city’s larger network. Many remain disconnected.

De Blasio, in public appearances last week, said that the hack was under investigation by the New York City Police Department’s intelligence bureau and the FBI’s cyber task force. He said officials were not aware of a ransom demand being made or of any information being compromised.

Officials also said there was no evidence that the attack had damaged the city’s computer systems, though the investigation was still in an early stage. Investigators are still trying to determine the identity of the perpetrator and the motive.

“We’ve identified the…

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US energy, treasury, commerce departments among those hacked

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U.S. government agencies including Treasury, Energy and Commerce were hacked. Officials suspect Russia was behind the cyberattack.

WASHINGTON — Federal authorities expressed increased alarm Thursday about a long-undetected intrusion into U.S. and other computer systems around the globe that officials suspect was carried out by Russian hackers. The nation’s cybersecurity agency warned of a “grave” risk to government and private networks.

The hack compromised federal agencies and “critical infrastructure” in a sophisticated attack that was hard to detect and will be difficult to undo, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in an unusual warning message. The Department of Energy acknowledged it was among those that had been hacked.

The attack, if authorities can prove it was carried out by Russia as experts believe, creates a fresh foreign policy problem for President Donald Trump in his final days in office.

Trump, whose administration has been criticized for eliminating a White House cybersecurity adviser and downplaying Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, has made no public statements about the breach.

President-elect Joe Biden, who will inherit the potentially difficult U.S.-Russia relationship, spoke up forcefully about the hack, declaring that he and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris “will make dealing with this breach a top priority from the moment we take office.”

“We need to disrupt and deter our adversaries from undertaking significant cyberattacks in the first place,” he said. “We will do that by, among other things, imposing substantial costs on those responsible for such malicious attacks, including in coordination with our allies and partners.”

“There’s a lot we…

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In an era of hybrid warfare, departments must work together to protect Britain – PoliticsHome.com

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In an era of hybrid warfare, departments must work together to protect Britain  PoliticsHome.com
“cyber warfare news” – read more