Cybersafetyconnections November 27 ,2023 vol #145 

  • According to konbriefing St. Lucie Tax Collector office – Fort Pierce, Florida, USA (St. Lucie County) experienced a cyberattack believed to be ransomware. 
  • No personal information was reported breached, only that the agency’s system was shut down. 
  • BlackCat, a Russian created ransomware that is readily available on the darkweb for anyone to use for ransomware attack is trending and is suspected to be the culprit. 
  • Steps taken to mitigate loss from the cyberattack were the proactive housing of data offsite/external servers? 

What happened? 

Ransomware Highway Sign 

St. Lucie Tax Collector – Fort Pierce, Florida, USA (St. Lucie County) had experienced what was suspected to be a ransomware attack that caused the agency’s computer system to shut down. 

Who was impacted? 

Skip the hysteria, what you need to know 

According to St. Lucie County Tax Collector Chris Craft, hackers did not get personal information. And he reassured taxpayers that their personal information was not compromised. And though we have been informed that no personal information was compromised, Cybersecurity expert Alan Crowetz of InfoStream said it would be costly and expensive to get the system up and running. 

Which cybercriminal group was responsible? 

Ilustracao gratis; hack, hacker Elit… 

No particular ransomware cybercriminal group has been held responsible for the attack. The only information we have is from Cybersecurity expert Alan Crowetz of InfoStream who said that the new wave of hacking is targeting government agencies, and the BlackCat ransomware, which was developed in Russia, is being used by hackers .Unfortunately this BlackCat ransomware is available to anyone on the darkweb and so this does not specifically mention the cybercriminal group directly responsible for the attack. 

Besides St. Lucie Tax Collector’s Office, the Pensacola News Journal reported that BlackCat ransomware had hacked First Judicial Circuit Court located in northwest Florida. 

How has the Agency mitigated the loss from ransomware attack? 

Model Business Continuity 

Hopefully the Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan for St. Lucie County Tax Collector office does not resemble the Dilbert cartoon above. 

 So far here are the actions taken by the agency to mitigate loss from the ransomware attack; 

  • St. Lucie County Tax Collector Chris Craft explained the state had assured that driver’s license information and car registration stored on a state server was 100% secure. 
  • He also said that credit card information handled by a credit card processing vendor has been confirmed to be 100% secure. 
  • Working on getting the system up and running. 
  • St. Lucie County’s Tax Collector hasn’t revealed whether hackers demanded money, but the state law prohibits government agencies from paying a ransom for cyberattacks.  

Conclusion 

We see here again in this story how having data backed up/housed at external servers or offsite has helped to keep personal data secure. That is of course until there is a data breached at those locations where data is stored. 

So, this a call to take back up of data seriously as to have a fallback position in the event of Ransomware/cyberattack and to have a plan in place to continue running the business in the face of a cyberattack.

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