A ransomware attack forced the shutdown of all the computer operations of the city of Greenville, South Carolina, According to the cyber forensics course experts from the International Institute of Cyber Security, the attack forced the authorities to shut down most of their servers.
Greenville officials, together with
professionals from the rest of the U.S., began a joint effort to stop the
infection, as well as to determine who the possible perpetrators of the attack
are.
“This is a ransomware attack, we forced a
shutdown” said a city spokesman. “The perpetrators of the attack
demanded a ransom, but that’s all I can say for the moment,” concluded the
official, not without first adding that the government’s IT teams are doing
everything they can to rehabilitate all the affected services as soon as
possible.
According to the cyber forensics course experts,
the police communication systems and emergency services work on a regular
basis, as they are on separate servers from the rest.
Reports say the infection was initially
detected by a member of the Greenville Police Department, who contacted the
city government’s technology area. Subsequently, officials decided to close the
system to begin the recovery process.
The Greenville Government’s operations are
being carried out on a regular basis, except for some exceptions; “the
functions of the Greenville government are carried out by people, not just by
machines,” declared a city official.
Ransomware attack variants of this type have
been detected recently in various parts of the world. A couple of weeks ago,
the Norsk
Hydro company was hit by a ransomware attack that forced the suspension
of some systems from the aluminum manufacturing company.
Ransomware is one of the most recently grown cyber threats, said cyber forensic course experts; this malware variant encrypts the victim’s files and then demands a cryptocurrency payment in exchange for unlocking infected files.
