July 30, 2024 at 12:52PM
Columbus, Ohio is investigating a ransomware attack on July 18, 2024, which disrupted city services and potentially exposed personal data. Public safety services were not affected. The attack was attributed to foreign ransomware actors, with the FBI and Homeland Security containing the threat. The city is in the early stages of the investigation and plans to notify affected individuals.
Based on the meeting notes provided:
– The City of Columbus, Ohio, is investigating a ransomware attack that disrupted its services on July 18, 2024.
– The attack caused disruptions in public-facing services and led to confusion about the IT outages being linked to CrowdStrike’s faulty Falcon configuration update.
– Mayor Andrew J. Ginther stated that the outage was part of the City’s response to a cybersecurity incident on June 23, 2024.
– Email services and IT connectivity between public agencies were rendered unavailable, but public safety and emergency services continued to operate as usual.
– The ransomware attack was successfully thwarted, and no systems were encrypted. The response to the incident involved engaging the FBI and Homeland Security department.
– The attackers were described as “an established, sophisticated threat actor operating overseas,” but no specific threat group names or other information were given.
– The city is in the process of identifying individuals whose personal information was potentially exposed and will provide notice and additional guidance to those impacted in the coming weeks.
– Hackers accessed the City’s internal network after an employee downloaded a ZIP file from a website.
– Citizens potentially impacted by this incident are advised to stay alert for phishing or scamming attempts leveraging stolen information.
– The City’s authorities are expected to publish an update in the upcoming period to specify whether any data has been stolen and will notify those impacted if necessary.