Weare Police Department became victim of a cyberattack

Weare Police Department of New Hampshire has disclosed that they became victim of a cyberattack in March 2017. This incident came to light when a local cybersecurity company warned the town officials, after they find data of the Weare Police Department getting sold on dark web. Dark web is a part of World Wide Web, which normally requires specific software for accessing it.

As per a report, Yury Polozov, security analyst of Wapack Labs, has found various confidential data in Jan. 2018 while investigating about a hacking group called Huckster. He said that "we were looking deeper into it, and we found a number of other victims of that hacker group". Polozov added that Weare Police Department was also a victim of hack.

The town official has disclosed in a statement that it became a malware attack victim, which was launched in between Mar. 6 and Mar. 13, 2017. Even though the town administrator stated that there has been no evidence of any information getting misused, the Wapack Labs said they have found files belonging to the police department. "Hackers were selling that bit of information of police for 1 bitcoin," Polozov said.

Wapack Labs said that the files they saw for sale have been labeled as "Chief Kelly employment agreement", "sex offender registration" and "payroll". It also included several important documents on the official department letterhead.

Weare Board of Selectmen has addressed this incident with a statement in their meeting on June 3, 2019. Ricky Hippler, the Chairman, said that "we learned that one employee was a victim of the malware attack, which resulted in unauthorized access to the employee's machine and files between March 6 2017, and March 13, 2017".

Weare Board of Selectmen also stated that the town has acted quickly, once it learned about the matter. Hippler said that "upon learning of the issue, we conducted a prompt and thorough investigation. As part of that, we worked with external cybersecurity professionals".

The town officials said that the investigation has already taken more than a year, and they could not notify the public up until now. The investigation of Weare about the breach is still ongoing.

» SPAMfighter News - 6/25/2019