Tag Archive for: pennsylvania

2020 a historic year for Pennsylvania National Guard | Article

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FORT INDIANTOWN GAP, Pa. – 2020 was a year like no other in recent history for the Pennsylvania National Guard.Throughout the year, Soldiers and Airmen of the Pennsylvania National Guard responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, civil unrest and natural disasters in our homeland and deployed around the world, in addition to conducting their usual readiness training."This year has been nothing short of historic,” said Maj. Gen. Mark Schindler, Pennsylvania’s acting adjutant general. “Our Pa. National Guard responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, modified our training and operations in order to safely support civil unrest missions, mobilized the 28th Aviation Brigade, deployed two Air Wings overseas and back, sustained un-interrupted combat operations from Horsham and successfully conducted a Division War Fighter Exercise.”In 2020, nearly 1,800 Pa. Guard members deployed in support of ongoing contingency and force protection operations in Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Qatar, Poland, Germany and Kosovo.The PNG also supported domestic operations, deploying approximately 5,900 personnel in Pennsylvania and nationally to assist local authorities with COVID-19 pandemic response, civil unrest and natural disasters. During the 2020 primary and general elections, the PNG supported local and state agencies with the protection and monitoring of cyber networks.Fort Indiantown Gap continued to play a major role in supporting National Guard activities as the PNG’s headquarters. FTIG played host to more than 118,000 active duty, Reserve and National Guard service members in 2020, remaining among the busiest National Guard training centers in the nation.“With the support of our employers, the Soldiers and Airmen of the Pennsylvania National Guard stepped up and got the job done,” said Schindler. “I am extremely proud of our men, women, and their families for their sacrifice and service to our commonwealth and country.”COVID-19 ResponsePennsylvania National Guard members have been involved in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic continually since mid-March. To date, approximately 1,500 PNG members were on duty for a total of over 58,000 man-days as they took part in a variety of…

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Pennsylvania county pays 500K ransom to DoppelPaymer ransomware

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DoppelPaymer

Delaware County, Pennsylvania has paid a $500,000 ransom after their systems were hit by the DoppelPaymer ransomware last weekend.

On Monday, Delaware County disclosed that they had taken portions of their computer network offline after discovering that their network was compromised.

“The County of Delaware recently discovered a disruption to portions of its computer network. We commenced an immediate investigation that included taking certain systems offline and working with computer forensic specialists to determine the nature and scope of the event. We are working diligently to restore the functionality of our systems,” the Delaware County alert stated.

The County stated that the Bureau of Elections and the County’s Emergency Services Department were not affected and are on a different network than the hacked systems.

Local media has stated that the ransomware operators had access to networks containing police reports, payroll, purchasing, and other databases. As part of the attack, the threat actors demanded a $500,000 ransom to receive a decryptor.

“Sources said the county is in the process of paying the $500,000 ransom as it’s insured for such attacks,” Philadelphia’s 6abc’s Action News reported.

DoppelPaymer gang behind attack

Since then, sources have told BleepingComputer that the DoppelPaymer ransomware gang was behind the attack and that Delaware County had paid the ransom.

DoppelPaymer dervices its name from BitPaymer, which shares a large portion of code, but has been improved over time with a threaded encryption process for faster operation.

DoppelPaymer is known to steal unencrypted files when performing their attacks. It is not known if this was done in the attack against Delaware County.

BleepingComputer was also told that the ransomware gang advised Delaware County to change all of their passwords and modify their Windows domain configuration to include safeguards from the Mimikatz program.

Mimikatz is an open-source application commonly used by ransomware gangs to harvest Windows domain credentials on a compromised network.

Mimikatz extracting NTLM hashes
Mimikatz extracting NTLM hashes
Source: Mimikatz Github page

Once the threat actors gain access to a Windows domain administrator…

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FBI probing computer system hack in Delaware County, Pennsylvania

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Action News has learned that the FBI has now joined a criminal investigation into who hacked the Delaware County, Pennsylvania government computer system.

Officials won’t say what’s been affected, other than the breach does not involve emergency services and Bureau of Elections computer networks.

On Monday, Delaware County officials released a statement on the breach saying, “The County of Delaware recently discovered a disruption to portions of our computer network. We commenced an immediate investigation that included taking certain systems offline and working with computer forensic specialists to determine the nature and scope of the event. We are working diligently to restore the functionality of our systems.”

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