New Orleans declared a state of emergency after a cyberattack
New Orleans declared a state of emergency and shut down its computers after a cyber security event, the city told its employees to shut down their computers as a precaution this weekend after an attempted cyberattack on Friday.
Suspicious activity was spotted around 5 a.m. Friday morning. By 8 a.m., there was an uptick in that activity, which included evidence of phishing attempts and ransomware, Kim LaGrue, the city’s head of IT said in a press conference. Once the city confirmed it was under attack, servers and computers were shut down.
With the effect of the state of emergency, the Civil District Court, and pulled local, state, and federal authorities into a (still pending) investigation of the incident. The city is still working to recover data from the attack but will be open as usual from this morning, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said on Twitter.
The nature of the attack is still something of a mystery. Cantrell confirmed that ransomware had been detected, but the city hasn’t received any demands for ransom money.
New Orleans was at least fairly well prepared for this attack, thanks to training for this scenario and its ability to operate many of its services without internet access, officials told reporters.
The government authorities are the soft target for the juicy targets ,reason being they usually lack the resources or know-how to adequately protect their systems, and often run machines on outdated, unpatched software. And of course, ransomware can be a lucrative business.
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