Tag Archive for: wake

Cities, county still reeling in wake of cyberattack

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TEXARKANA, Texas — As multiple agencies in both Texarkanas and Bowie County remain crippled by a ransomware attack discovered more than a month ago, frustration at a lack of information and progress grows among officials and personnel.

The attack on Texarkana Water Utilities, which handles information technology services for both the cities of Texarkana, Texas, and Texarkana, Arkansas, as well as Bowie County, Texas, was discovered Dec. 6. Agencies including the Bowie County Sheriff’s Office; Texarkana Texas Police Department; Texarkana Arkansas Police Department; Bowie County District Attorney’s Office; Bowie County District Clerk’s Office; Bowie County Clerk’s Office; Bowie County probation; Bowie County Justices of the Peace; and multiple other offices have been seriously impacted by the cyber attack.

“At this point I have no knowledge from the county judge’s office other than a short note about the ransomware,” Bowie County Justice of the Peace Nancy Talley said. “I’m in the dark like everyone else.”

Bowie County Judge Bobby Howell said a criminal investigation into the matter is ongoing and that the county has been advised to refrain from issuing public statements by a Pennsylvania law firm.

“Be patient. We will put some information out when the time is right,” Howell said.

Howell said the process of “rebuilding the network” is ongoing though he lamented one would need a “crystal ball” to know when digital processes and infrastructure would be restored and whether data has been irretrievably lost.

“It’s a complex organization,” Howell said.

Howell was reluctant in interviews this week to reveal the name of the law firm advising the county and has declined to provide the Gazette with a copy of the county’s relevant insurance policy. Shortly after 6 a.m. Thursday morning Howell texted contact information for the Mullen Coughlin firm of Devon, Pennsylvania, to Gazette staff. The firm’s website states it specializes in data privacy and incident response services.

A representative of Mullen Coughlin did not respond to a request for comment.

Bowie County Emergency Management Coordinator Lance Hall did not respond to calls from the Gazette this week other than a text message response…

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SolarWinds Taps Ex-Cyber Chief Krebs In Wake Of Major Hack

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Law360 (January 8, 2021, 10:46 PM EST) — SolarWinds Corp., the software provider at the center of the sprawling cyber espionage campaign that has breached several government agencies and the federal court system, has retained a new cyber consulting firm created by ousted U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director Chris Krebs and former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos to help recover from the likely Russia-backed cyberattack. 

SolarWinds disclosed last month that hackers had compromised some of its Orion information technology monitoring products and that up to 18,000 of its clients worldwide had installed the flawed software. Officials at the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Treasury, Homeland Security, Justice and…

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Why a Colossal Hack of US Interests Should Wake Up the Art Industry to Cybersecurity Threats (and Other Insights)

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Every Monday morning, Artnet News brings you The Gray Market. The column decodes important stories from the previous week—and offers unparalleled insight into the inner workings of the art industry in the process.

This week, a reinforcement of the maxim that only the paranoid survive…

 

ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH

Last Sunday, Reuters broke the news of what appears to be one of the most expansive, longest-running, and most damaging hacks in US history. The story should also double as a visceral reminder that, as the art market continues its aggressive march into enhanced online sales and global connectivity, cybersecurity deserves far more attention than it’s likely gotten during this anarchic year.

First uncovered by the cybersecurity firm FireEye, the mega-breach qualifies as what experts call a “supply-chain attack.” Rather than directly infiltrating their targets by stealing employees’ usernames and passwords, hackers instead broke into software that the true targets installed from a legitimate third-party supplier as part of a regular systems update. The corrupt software then provided the assailants a difficult-to-detect back door into the end user’s network—a back door that has been swinging open for six to nine months, per multiple reports.

Central to the debacle is a Texas-based IT company called SolarWinds, which produces software that manages the server networks of major public and private clients alike. According to Reuters, the firm’s “customers include most of America’s Fortune 500 companies, the top 10 US telecommunications providers, all five branches of the US military, the State Department, the National Security Agency, and the Office of President of the United States.” 

While the full extent of the SolarWinds breach will not be known for months, Microsoft confirmed that the hackers exploited at least “40 companies, government agencies, and think tanks,” per the New York Times. “Nearly half” of that cohort’s members are private tech companies, with “many” specializing in cybersecurity. An earlier Times story identified the Department of Homeland Security and “parts of the Pentagon” as confirmed government…

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