‘Triple Threat’ ransomware attack affected Lake City’s email systems

The Police Department of Lake City is investigating about the ransomware attack on its city network systems, which has resulted in shutdown of a number of services. Ransomware that was used in this attack was detected as the 'Triple Threat'.

As per the breach notification, police of Lake City have revealed that this ransomware attack happened on June 10, 2019. Three different approaches of attack were combined to target the Lake City's network systems in this 'Triple Threat' ransomware program. This has thus forced the city's land-line phones, credit card services, and email systems to shut down.

On the other hand, all the emergency services including Fire and Police were not affected by this attack. The Public Safety networks were also been isolated, and have been protected by encryption.

After this ransomware attack, the Lake City has had to use the hand-written bills along with paper receipts for most of their payment services. The police also said in the breach notification letter that "backup systems, such as using paper receipts for utility and water payments and hand-written building permits, are being employed. Any late fees incurred by City-related payments which resulted from delays caused by this attack will be waived. Utility payments can still be made in-person at City Hall, however, credit card payments are currently not available".

Brian Hawkins, the Information Technology Director of the City, said that even though the systems were shut down, but no evidence is there to indicate that any sensitive data is getting misused or compromised. He has claimed that all the customer service payment data, like credit card data, has been stored off-site by the third-party vendors, and thus cannot be accessed by attacks like this on the network.

Joe Helfenberger, the City Manager, said that they have been using all the available resources in order to recover from this attack. He also said that "our IT staff have been working nonstop to isolate our systems and recover any lost data. We have also contracted an outside consultant with expertise in combating this sort of attack".

The city government has said that city council is open, and it will send all the important information to Facebook page of Police Department of Lake City.

» SPAMfighter News - 6/26/2019