latest victim of a string of Cyberattacks this year

2019 was a lucrative year for hackers targeting local governments for their nefarious activities

Just over a week ago, the southern U.S city of New Orleans suffered a cyberattack as the city employees were asked to shut down their computers on the weekend as a precaution, eventually filing for a declaration of a state of emergency. The news was announced through the official twitter account of the Mayor of the city on December 15th.
The suspicious activity was first noted on the city networks around 5 am the Friday before with heightened attacks around 8 am. The city’s IT department reported both phishing attempts and ransomware attacks aimed at their computer systems. Once this was confirmed, the IT team shut down their servers & computers to avoid any further complications.
All the automated services including the city website (NOLA) were shut down as local, state, and federal authorities were roped into the investigation which is still ongoing. While the systems were flooded with suspicious emails & ransomware, no evidence of data being compromised has been noted neither has there been any demands for ransom so far.

t the time of publishing the automated systems were still down as per the city’s website but the positive was that all city facilities & programs were operating as usual, albeit manually. New Orleans was the latest in a string of cyberattacks on local governments this year in the U.S and elsewhere. Only last month, the state of Louisiana was hit by a similar cyberattack in which the hackers were able to shut down the state’s office of motor vehicles. The incident caused the governor of the state to declare a state of emergency.
Elsewhere in the country, 23 cities in Texas were targeted by a ransomware attack, back in August. The size and coordination of that attack pointed to a single nefarious player. Other states like North Carolina, California, Maine & Florida have reported similar ransomware attacks where criminals tried to extort money from the authorities.
A malware attack at Cleveland, Ohio’s main airport in April disrupted the flight and luggage information boards for five days. A May 2019 study found over 169 instances of ransomware infecting state and local governments since 2013 in the U.S alone.
Although the majority of these attacks seem to be targeting the local city & state governments in the U.S, the phenomenon extends well beyond the U.S borders. Johannesburg, South Africa, one of the biggest cities in Africa & the financial powerhouse of the continent was a repeat victim of hackers who shut down city services and networks first in July and then in October of this year.
Be it internal security lapses, absence of a dedicated cybersecurity team or proper safeguards, the hackers getting smarter or the combination of all these factors — the problem is getting bigger by the day. Who’s next?