Hacker Intruded Virginia State Agency Portal

A malicious actor hacked the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality; however according to a spokeswoman of the agency, the attack could compromise no data whatsoever. The intruder had acquired admission via exploitation of a security flaw inside the shell, said Ann Regn the DEQ spokeswoman.

VITA (Virginia Information Technologies Agency) spokeswoman Marcella Williamson said while answering queries from The Associated Press this week about the security flaw that software used for "content management system" of the online site helped the hacker acquire admission.

A united IT organization of the commonwealth, VITA detected the hacking attack against DEQ's system early on. According to Ms. Williamson, locating the flaw as also aborting the assault quickly saved DEQ's IT systems and website. She said those were preliminary findings, but her agency was still investigating the intrusion for the presentation of an ultimate report to Department of Environmental Quality.

And while VITA couldn't definitely tell the hacker's identity, at least according to Ms. Williamson, the targeted systems within the assault belonged to places in California and the Netherlands. Wtvr.com posted this on the Web dated June 14, 2018.

Within an e-mail Ms. Williamson wrote that both detecting the intruder and blocking the attack was fast that deterred significant changes. There was no way of being definite about the intention behind the assault. VITA hadn't encountered any clue whether the same assault occurred against the CMS systems of other states, although the agency continued monitoring any new hacks, Ms. Williamson elaborated.

DEQ's website was taken offline almost 2 weeks thereafter from May 22. While its restoration was done thereafter; all the applications however, didn't become functional. Ms. Regn of Department of Environmental Quality said the hacked system didn't contain any proprietary/personal data, while the attacker couldn't compromise any such information.

And because documents and notices weren't available for review over the website for a long span of time, the time-periods for comments and remarks were stretched to post contents based on an opportunity for public comments and remarks in down time. VITA was yet to present an ultimate report regarding the event, stated Ms. Williamson.

» SPAMfighter News - 6/22/2018