Tag Archive for: river

Swansea Public Schools issues update regarding ransomware attack, return to school – Fall River Reporter

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Superintendent John Robidoux has issued an update regarding a ransomware attack on #Swansea Public Schools’ network.

On Tuesday, January 3rd, Swansea Public Schools’ network experienced a ransomware attack. Within minutes of this attack, Swansea Public Schools’ cybersecurity company, Hub Technology, was able to isolate the attack and shut down the network system.

While the district worked to resolve the attack, all schools were closed on Wednesday, January 4th.

The cybersecurity company, in collaboration with the district’s IT Department, was able to remove any viruses, worms and ransomware on the network and add additional security measures.

Through a preliminary investigation, it was determined that no personal student or staff information was compromised and no cloud-based files or information was affected by the attack.

It is believed that this attack occurred due to an encrypted download that was run by someone within the district, but is not believed to be malicious. Swansea Public Schools will continue to participate in ongoing KnowBe4 training to assist school community members in learning more about security awareness and how to identify phishing attacks.

“I am thankful that our district has security measures attached to our network that prevented a much larger issue from occurring,” Superintendent Robidoux said. “I would like to thank Randi Arruda, Gilly Pereira and Gio Pimental for their hard work in ensuring that we are able to resolve this matter efficiently and proceed with teaching and learning in a safe manner.”

School will resume tomorrow, Thursday, January 5, for all students at their regular times.

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Copper River Cyber Solutions Wins DCSA Contract to Provide Background Investigation Support Services

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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE CONTRACTS VALUED AT $7 MILLION AND ABOVE

DEFENSE INFORMATIONS SYSTEMS AGENCY

American Systems Corp., Chantilly, Virginia, was awarded a competitive single award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for test, evaluation, and certification services. The face value of this action has a contract ceiling of $1,010,000,000. The minimum guarantee of $10,000 will be satisfied through the issuance of the first task order, which will be funded by fiscal 2023 research, development, test, and evaluation appropriations. The ordering period for the base period is Dec. 2, 2022, to Dec. 1, 2026, with one five-year option period and one one-year option period through Dec. 1, 2032. The Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, is the contracting activity (HC102823D0001).

NAVY

Bechtel Plant Machinery Inc., Monroeville, Pennsylvania, is awarded a $768,485,104 cost-plus-fixed-fee modification to previously awarded contract N00024-19-C-2114 for naval nuclear propulsion components. Work will be performed in Monroeville, Pennsylvania (70%); and Schenectady, New York (30%). Fiscal 2023 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds in the amount of $768,485,104 (100%) will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity.

Crowley Government Services Inc., Jacksonville, Florida (N3220523C2506), is awarded a $45,850,402 firm-fixed-price contract for the operation and maintenance of six government-owned Transportation Auxiliary General Ocean Surveillance (T-AGOS) and Transportation Auxiliary General Missile Range instrument (T-AGM) vessels. The vessels under this award include U.S. Naval Ship (USNS) Victorious (T-AGOS 19); USNS Able (T-AGOS 20); USNS Effective (T-AGOS 21); USNS Loyal (T-AGOS 22); USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS 23); and USNS Howard O. Lorenzen (T-AGM 25). Work will be performed worldwide, with an expected completion date of May 30, 2024. The maximum dollar…

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Hackers steal $420K from Port of Louisiana; the Mississippi River port is beefing up security | News

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The Louisiana state agency overseeing one of America’s largest ports by volume suffered a cyber-attack in last year that cost it more than $420,000, a newly public audit has found.

Auditors for the Port of South Louisiana said the cyber-attack led to the money being misappropriated. Port officials have been able to recoup about $250,000 through insurance and are filing paperwork to seek more reimbursement.

The agency has a budget of about $15 million a year.

A new annual audit, which covered the fiscal year ending on April 30, 2022, disclosed the theft but offered few details about what the hack was, when it happened or if any arrests had been made.

But port officials’ response to the auditors offered some clue.

Officials told auditors that they were training employees to protect against future attacks and have started “a third-party verification process” for vendors seeking payment that includes “verifying information through a phone call with a representative of the requesting vendor.”

Micah Cormier, spokesman for the port, said Wednesday the port would not offer more details “because making that information public will make the port vulnerable to another attack.”

The port hired Evalv IQ, a firm with expertise in cybersecurity. The company has completed “a cyber audit” that did not turn up “an active or live breach within 2022,” Cormier said.

“There were minor network vulnerabilities that have been corrected,” he said.

Separately, in September, port officials also announced they have received a nearly $1 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to improve the state agency’s cybersecurity and other security measures.

The grant award wasn’t directly related to the cyber-attack, Cormier said, but reflected a broader decision to respond seriously to rising security risks.

“This is becoming a bigger threat across the country and the world. This is just for simply locking down our vulnerabilities and hardening our infrastructure here, so we can make it better and prevent it from happening,” he said. 

The FEMA dollars are expected to beef up not only cyber security technologies and monitoring but also geographical software systems.

With the…

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Toronto’s Humber River Hospital under code grey after ransomware attack – Toronto

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Officials are Humber River Hospital are scrambling to restore their computer systems after the facility in Toronto’s north end was the target of a ransomware attack.

A statement on the hospital’s website posted earlier in the week said during the early hours of Monday, it experienced a so-called “zero day ransomware of a new malware variant,” forcing staff to declare a code grey (a loss of essential services).

While the emergency department was still operational, some clinics were cancelled and ambulances were redirected.

READ MORE: Recent increases in ransomware attacks may lead to a new internet

“Since our systems are constantly updated (most recent patching June 13, 2021) and monitored this was discovered almost immediately and all IT systems were shut down, including our patient health records system,” the statement said, adding while no confidential information was breaking some files were corrupted.

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“We have over 5,000 computers, 800 of which are servers, (and) each will be restarted manually. [The repair patch] will be added to each computer and then each system recovered as required.”

Security engineer Kellman Mengu said ransomware attacks, which involves taking data, files and systems hostage remotely and often for money, are common and can cause massive disruptions for hospital operations.

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READ MORE: World’s largest meat processor gets back online after cyberattack linked to Russia

“We have automated a lot of things in our world and we are now heavily dependent on the technology,” he said.

“I’m willing to bet there aren’t backup paper records easily accessible. Things like patient history and understanding what they have gone through the past for the doctors is critical for them to be able to make medical decisions.

“It’s not just patient records — it’s things like…

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