Ransomware Attack on Dallas Shuts Down the City's Online Services
A ransomware attack has ensnared the city of Dallas, shutting down online and IT services at the municipal government, including local police.
On Wednesday, the city of Dallas confirmed a ransomware attack was behind the outage, which began on Monday, according(Opens in a new window) to local reports.
“Subsequently, the city has confirmed that a number of servers have been compromised with ransomware, impacting several functional areas, including the Dallas Police Department Website,” the city said in a statement(Opens in a new window).
City officials are now working with cybersecurity vendors “to isolate the ransomware to prevent its spread,” the statement added. This includes scrubbing infected servers. Hence, residents can expect online city services to remain offline until the IT systems have been fully wiped and restored. Currently, the sites for Dallas city hall(Opens in a new window), city courts(Opens in a new window) and city police(Opens in a new window) are down.
Ransomware works by encrypting entire fleets of computers, rendering them inoperable. The hackers behind the attacks will then demand the victims pay up to free the computers, with the ransom sometimes reaching six figures or more.
According to BleepingComputer(Opens in a new window), the hackers printed out the ransomware demand on the city’s printers. A ransomware group called “Royal” is claiming responsibility.
The US’s own cyber authorities have already been warning(Opens in a new window) about Royal, and say the group has “made ransom demands ranging from approximately $1 million to $11 million USD in Bitcoin.” In the past, the gang has often infiltrated victim networks by using phishing emails or hijacking remote desktop protocol services.
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