Rockdale County becomes victim to ransomware attack

Rockdale County is located in Georgia, United States. It has a population of around 90,312 and the seat is Conyers. On Feb 6th, Rockdale County Technology Services became victim to a ransomware attack which has compromised multiple servers within the organization. 

It is believed that the attack was initiated when one of the employees opened an attachment from an infected e-mail. The Rockdale County IT department identified the breach immediately and shut down the systems before the ransomware could spread to other systems. However, the ransomware has taken down nine county servers now. With proper mitigation and alert systems the reactive cyber team reduced the impact from the attack. 

The County officials shutdown the systems, phone lines, and emails for the day, and mentioned all communications will be sporadic for a while until unwanted infiltration are tracked down and neutralized. The County also did mention (check the facebook post below) that the payments for water resources will be temporarily shut down for 24 hours, and the payment deadlines will be extended correspondingly.

Why was Rockdale County a hot target?

Rockdale County is known for its rich heritage right from the 1700s, and thanks to its population the attackers would now have access to sufficient personal data of the people in the county. Also, this locality has been a place for famous movies and television shows like American Reunion, Flash, The Originals, Vampire Dairies, Teen Wolf and more, giving an idea of the data that could exist in this county. And that’s why attackers move into the County’s government database would not go bootless.

Concerns and warnings

Inspite of ransomware becoming a very common threat, employees and IT departments haven’t embraced themselves with the right cyber strategies and awareness programs. Though Rockdale County handle the situation promptly, nine servers have been compromised which is a serious situation. 

Employees have to be educated towards cyber practices, and IT departments need to ensure they restrict emails from anonymous entities using browser security strategies like browser isolation, browser lock down or blacklisting websites. Phishing emails and social engineering attacks can only be reduced if cyber awareness is evangelized to employees and residents. 

It’s only been few days since the Bouygues Construction became victim to a ransomware attack, and now Rockdale County joins the list. It is not a surprise if your organization becomes the next victim a ransomware attack, build your strategies, employ the right tools, evangelize cybersecurity to stay secured. 

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