State and local governments continue to be targeted by threat actors. Here are three current situations in the news:
Mission, Texas. Valley Central reports:
The cybersecurity attack on the city of Mission has prompted the Mayor to declare a state of local disaster.
Mayor Norie Gonzalez Garza sent a letter to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, informing his office that the “cybersecurity incident” left the city’s computer system vulnerable to an attack.
Such an attack could lead to the release of protected personal information and affect every city department. City officials announced the original incident occurred February 28.
Mayor Garza has asked the Governor to declare a state of emergency in Mission and issue appropriate directives under section 418.00 of the Texas Government Code.
Missouri. GovTech reports that the state is investigating an attack on its Conservation Department:
The agency overseeing hunting and fishing permits in Missouri has been hit by a cyber attack and is trying to determine the scope of the breach, state officials said Monday.
A spokesman for the Missouri Department of Conservation said cybersecurity teams continue to investigate “suspicious activity” on one of its data servers after announcing the attack on Friday.
The department has activated its Incident Response Team and “as it learns more, including if any individual data has been compromised, MDC will communicate directly with the impacted stakeholders,” the agency said in a statement.
Sausalito, California. The Marin Independent Journal reported on how Sausalito City Council fought off a determined hacking attempt:
The Sausalito City Council was prompted to call off its latest meeting after what the city manager called a “blunt force” hacking attempt on the computer system.
The agenda items that were supposed to be discussed Tuesday were postponed for other meetings this month.
“The council made that decision in an abundance of caution,” Mayor Joan Cox said.
City Manager Chris Zapata said hackers made more than 190,000 attempts in under 24 hours to compromise staff password access. The city’s security measures halted the attack, he said.
“Sausalito recently implemented more complex user authentication protocols for city users, which was instrumental in the attack being thwarted,” Zapata said.
