Tag Archive for: systems

Dallas County computer systems targeted in cyber attack Oct. 19, county judge says

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A cyber attack recognized by Dallas County officials Oct. 19 may have compromised the personal information of employees and residents, according to a statement from County Judge .

Jenkins said in the statement, released Monday, that the county is working with police and external cybersecurity experts to determine the extent of the information compromised in the attack. Dallas County officials took immediate steps when the attack was identified on Oct. 19 to contain it.

Jenkins did not say how extensive the attack was, who may have been impacted or what information was targeted. The county has put “stringent security protocols” in place to “safeguard our systems and data,” he said in the statement.

“As the investigation is still ongoing, we do not want to make premature assumptions about the extent of impact or other details, which may evolve as the forensic investigation advances,” Jenkins said. “We value the trust and credibility we have established with our residents and partners and strive to maintain accuracy in the information we share.”

The city of Dallas was hit with a ransomware attack in May that disabled systems for months and exposed information related to more than 30,000 people. Dallas officials identified the attackers as ransomware group “Royal.”

In June, Fort Worth was targeted by a cyber attack that resulted in a leak of roughly 180 gigabytes of city work orders and police reports. SeigedSec, a self-described hacker group of “gay furries,” was identified by the city as the perpetrators of the attack. It said on social media around the time of the attack that it was targeting Texas governments because of the state’s policy on gender affirming care.

The city said in June it was confident it had identified and plugged the hole that allowed the hackers access to the city’s systems. Unlike the attack in Dallas, the hack on Fort Worth’s systems was not ransomware.

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Third-party gained access to University of Michigan systems, leading to August internet outage

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ANN ARBOR, MI – A third-party source infiltrated University of Michigan computer systems, which led to officials shutting down university internet during the outage at the start of the fall semester, officials said.

The university first detected suspicious activity on its campus computer network on Aug. 23, according to university spokeswoman Kim Broekhuizen. The university’s Information Assurance team, which fights cybersecurity threats and malicious actors, shut down the system the afternoon of Aug. 27.

An investigation was launched into the hack, and with the help of third-party experts, it was determined that an unauthorized individual was able to access certain university systems from Aug. 23-27, officials said.

“Based on this data analysis, we believe that the unauthorized third party was able to access personal information relating to certain students and applicants, alumni and donors, employees and contractors, University Health Service and School of Dentistry patients, and research study participants,” Broekhuizen wrote in an email to MLive/The Ann Arbor News.

The university has determined that students, applicants, alumni, donors, employees and contractors have had the following information accessed: Social Security numbers, driver’s license or other government-issued identification numbers, financial account of payment card numbers and/or health information, officials said.

Research study participants through the University Health Service and School of Dentistry have had the same information accessed, plus any information related to participation in certain research studies, officials said.

In addition to disconnecting the campus network from internet, the university notified law enforcement and is working with outside cybersecurity experts to make its network more secure, officials said.

Letters were sent on Monday, Oct. 23 to all university individuals affected, officials said. People with sensitive information from this incident are being offered a credit monitoring service free of charge from the university, officials said.

Credit reports can be accessed in the following ways:

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A security problem has taken down computer systems for almost all Kansas courts

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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Computer systems for almost all of Kansas’ courts have been offline for five days because of what officials call a “security incident,” preventing them from accepting electronic filings and blocking public access to many of their records.

Judicial branch officials still don’t know the extent of the problem or how long the computer systems will remain offline, spokesperson Lisa Taylor said Tuesday. The problem, discovered Thursday, meant the systems haven’t been able to accept electronic filings, process payments, manage cases, grant public access to records, allow people to file electronically for protection-from-abuse orders and permit people to apply electronically for marriage licenses.

Divorced parents who are supposed to receive child support from their ex-spouses are likely to see delays in the processing of their payments, the state Department for Children and Families also announced Tuesday.

The problems don’t affect courts in Johnson County in the Kansas City area, the state’s most populous county, because it operates its own computer systems. But state Supreme Court Chief Justice Marla Luckert last week directed the courts in the state’s 104 other counties to accept paper filings and filings by fax or mail, suspending a requirement that attorneys file electronically.

Wisconsin’s court system reported an attack by hackers in March, a cybersecurity threat briefly forced Alaska’s courts offline in 2021, and Texas’ top criminal and civil courts were hit with a ransomware attack in 2020. The International Criminal Court also reported what it called a “cybersecurity incident” in September.

But Taylor said Kansas court officials do not yet know whether its “security incident” was a malicious attack.

“It’s not just one system. It’s multiple systems that are all interconnected,” she said. “We’ve got the electronic filing, which is separate from the case management system, yet they they are connected in some way.”

Because courts have in recent years been keeping only digital copies of many records, those records won’t be accessible to the public with computer systems down, Taylor said.

A joint legislative committee that examines state…

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Hackers attack PhilHealth’s website, systems

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The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) on Wednesday reminded partner hospitals to start filing claims for reimbursements after the submission period reverted back to 60 calendar days from a patient’s discharge.

MANILA, Philippines — Computer hackers attacked the website and online application of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) on Friday, taking down the systems and blocking access for more than 24 hours.

In a statement on Saturday, PhilHealth said it has started containment measures as well as an investigation of the “information security incident,” together with the Department of Information and Communications Technology and other concerned government agencies “to assess its extent.”

Investigation

“While investigation is being undertaken, affected systems shall be temporarily shut down to secure our application systems,” PhilHealth president and CEO Emmanuel Ledesma said.

The head of the state insurer appealed for understanding and assured that “we will get to the bottom of this and will institute stronger systems to prevent this from happening again.”

The Inquirer reached out to multiple officials and staff of PhilHealth to confirm whether the incident was a Medusa ransomware attack, but they have yet to reply.

READ:

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PNP on ransomware: Don’t click

Ransomware suspected

A ransomware is a cyberattack that holds one entity’s data or system hostage until a ransom is paid.

In a February 2023 report by the US Department of Health and Human Services, MedusaLocker, a ransomware variant, was able to “infect and encrypt systems, primarily targeting the health-care sector, after it was first detected in September 2019.

MedusaLocker, deemed as “lesser known but potent,” leveraged the disorder and confusion during the COVID-19 pandemic to launch attacks, the report said.

According to a cybersecurity company last week, a firm usually spends about P55 million or about $1 million to resolve a single data breach and pay off ransom to regain system access.


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