Police Federation of UK subject of ransomware infection

Police Federation of the United Kingdom recently substantiated it was struck with a cyber-attack. An organisation akin to a union and forming 119,000 numbered police force representing 43 units across England as well as Wales depicted the incident to be a ransomware assault.

Specifically, PFEW or Police Federation of England and Wales stated that the first time it became aware of the assault it was when infection spread across its computers March 9 a Saturday. Immediately, of course, security experts quarantined the malicious program so it could be prevented from infecting the other units of the Federation. Although how much the damage occurred is still unknown, the announcement's FAQ page indicated that several systems and databases boar the brunt of the assault. Accordingly, backup databases were encrypted making them inaccessible just as files couldn't be accessed and e-mail services had to be shutdown.

The assault wasn't targeted particularly against PFEW while there were more chances of it playing a larger scale campaign, with it hitherto being reckoned as solely impacting the Surrey Headquarters of the organisation. PFEW doesn't believe the hackers extracted any information from its computers.

According to the organisation comprising chief inspectors, inspectors, sergeants and constables in forty three territorial forces, it can't be ruled out that there was no extraction of data therefore, PFEW was adopting precautionary measures for notifying people who might be impacted. www.theregister.co.uk posted this, March 21, 2019.

Meanwhile, the attack is undergoing an investigation by the National Crime Agency. In a twitter message, PFEW stated that to take precaution the organisation was contacting all those potentially impacted, even its members. Moreover, it would be providing additional helpful information, importantly what way people could make enquiries, the tweet indicated.

According to Vice President of Product Management and Strategy Tim Erlin from Tripwire, PFEW has reported it's doing uninterrupted joint task with specialists for bringing computers back to normal as also minimize damage from the ransomware infection. Within its customary statement PFEW expressed regrets too alongside stressing that it considered data security with extreme seriousness and therefore responded to the incident immediately upon becoming aware of it.

» SPAMfighter News - 3/26/2019