A recent Kansas cyberattack has affected one of its small towns. The incident disrupted vital government services after emails, telephone calls, and online payments suffered interruption from a hack last weekend.
The city manager assured its citizens to address the situation immediately. Moreover, they claim that they recognise the significance of this event and have already initiated actions that would remediate some of the problems.
Moreover, the city government said they have already launched a comprehensive assessment, which would take weeks to come up with conclusions. Hence, they asked the people to be patient while evaluating the situation.
The Kansas cyberattack resulted in the outage of its IT services.
The Kansas cyberattack has caused widespread IT outages. Fortunately, critical services like 911 and other utilities remained functional during the interruption. As of now, the city has implemented proactive measures to protect the city’s data and network systems.
They have also employed the services of a third-party cybersecurity team that would aid them in the investigation of the attack. Unfortunately, the city has yet to identify the nature of the attack, whether ransomware or cyber espionage. Additionally, the investigators have not seen any ransom notes that would indicate that the attack is a ransomware operation.
This town in Kansas is not the first in the region to face such an attack, with previous incidents striking its capital, affecting medical centres and wastewater facilities over the past three years.
The incident has not affected Pittsburg State University in the southern part of town. The city government also assured everyone that their educational institution was safe but reminded everyone about the indiscriminate nature of cyber threats in the cybercriminal landscape.
The federal Department of Homeland Security warned everyone about the increasing ransomware threat across different cities. They predict these hackers could earn nearly $1 billion from extortion ransoms this year.
Every city should employ the most potent cybersecurity solutions since these malicious actors are starting to target more towns. Big cities and small towns should always be prepared for these attacks, as threat actors are not picky with their targets.
