Washington State city allegedly hit by ransomware, Pierce County
Breach Type –
Unknown, Ransomware
CyberNews.com
February 22nd, 2023
- ”The BlackCat ransomware gang (ALPHV) has listed the City of Lakewood, Washington, on its data leak site, urging the affected companies to sue the municipality.
Lakewood is a city in Pierce County, Washington, with a population of over 63,000. BlackCat claimed it had breached Lakewood City Council and stolen over 250GB worth of data."
- "Because of their misunderstanding and inability to negotiate, we share information with you,” BlackCat said and shared a link to download 252GB of documents.
Cybernews has not reviewed the files. We contacted the City Council to learn more about the alleged incident. We will update the article as soon as we know more.”
- “BlackCat also urged parties that might be affected by the leak in the future to sue the municipality.”
“You should not work with them, their structure is also not protected, and the vulnerability has not been fixed. Companies that will be subject to attacks related to them should sue,” the gang said in a blog post.”
Read More
Grant County email hit by phishing attack
Breach Type –
Phishing, Malware
Yahoo! News
September 22nd, 2022
- “If you receive an email asking you to open a proposal or the sender is sharing a file, delete the email. Do not open the email; do not input any username or password if requested," wrote Grant County Director of Central Services Tom Gaines in an email alert sent out by the Grant County Sheriff's Office Thursday morning."
- “Gaines said the county's email system was hit by a phishing email after a county employee opened an infected email from another county, and was soon sending out emails with the same bad attachment."
- "Before quarantining and deleting the infected email and files, Gaines said some emails went out, with the City of Ephrata, Motorola and at least one employee in another county. He advised recipients to delete any county emails asking people to open an attachment.”
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Data breach limits service at Whatcom County libraries
Breach Type –
Unknown, Data Breach
KGMI News
June 28th, 2022
- "A data breach has limited services for Whatcom County Library patrons."
- "The breach impacts the libraries’ email and phone systems."
- "Curbside pickup is also impacted, as the service is scheduled through email."
- "Perkins says that the investigation is ongoing, but they suspect the breach was caused by malware."
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More than $800,000 in Seattle homeless funds intended for Mary's Place shelter may have been stolen, emails shows, King County
Breach Type –
Hacking, Data Breach
Seattle Times
November 21st, 2021
-
“The city of Seattle mistakenly sent more than $800,000 of funds intended to help homeless people to fraudsters…”
-
“The case may have involved someone “posing” as Mary’s Place, according to a spokesperson for the state auditor, whose office was notified of the loss in late July.”
-
“In July, the city’s Human Services Department’s chief financial officer…said in an email that the deposits were sent to a “fraudulent account” and that the city was working with the FBI and the Secret Service, which investigates cyber fraud.”
- “A city spokesperson wrote… that federal investigators determined that the city and Mary’s Place were victims of fraud with losses totaling approximately $831,062 over a six-month period.”
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Washington state data breach may have exposed personal details of licensed professionals, State of Washington
Breach Type –
Hacking, Data Breach
Oregon Live
February 6th, 2022
- "The Washington State Department of Licensing said the personal information of potentially millions of licensed professionals may have been exposed after it detected suspicious activity on its online licensing system."
- "Shut down its online platform temporarily after learning of the activity in January...Data stored on the system, which is called POLARIS, could include Social Security numbers, birth dates and driver’s license numbers."
- "The agency doesn’t yet know whether such data was actually accessed or how many individuals may have been affected,"
- "the agency has been working with the state Office of Cybersecurity, the state Attorney General’s Office and a third-party cybersecurity firm to understand the scope of the incident"
Read More
CT Post
February 11th, 2022
-
“Based on our investigation, (Department of Licensing) has sufficient reason to believe the Professional and Business Licensing System was accessed and records were acquired without authorization,”
-
“Agency officials had initially said that the breach might have exposed the data of at least the 257,000 individuals active licenses in the system, but acknowledged that the full number was likely larger. Friday’s estimate grew to 650,000 because it included individuals with non-active licenses, and also because a single business license can include information for multiple individuals, Olson said.”
-
“The agency will begin notifying individuals who were potentially affected by the breach and providing them with credit monitoring and identity theft protection.”
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Town of Tenino defrauded out of almost $300,000, Thurston County
Breach Type –
Phishing, Other
Big Country News Connection
January 15th, 2022
-
"The Office of the Washington State Auditor has released its findings on how the town of Tenino was bilked out of nearly $300,000 in 2020."
-
"According to the report, the person who was serving as the city’s clerk-treasurer at the time was scammed into sending the money out of state by a phishing email."
-
"An investigation by the Washington State Patrol (WSP) could not determine if the he personally benefited from the scheme. WSP turned its files over to the FBI for further investigation. So far, no charges have been filed."
-
"A total of $280,309 was sent out of state in 20 separate transactions over a six-week period in 2020."
Read More
Hackers demands $200k ransom from Tri-Cities port to unlock computer data, Port of Kennewick, Benton County
Breach Type –
Unknown, Ransomware
Tri-City Herald
November 18th, 2020
- "Hackers are demanding a $200,000 ransom after placing an encryption lock on the Port of Kennewick’s computer servers and files, the port said Tuesday. Under the direction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and advice from technology professionals, the port will not be paying the ransom.”
-
“Instead, it is working with the FBI and restoring the functioning of the port’s technology system, including rebuilding digital files from offline backups and bringing back access to the port’s email server, which is currently offline.”
- “The cyber attack was sophisticated, using “military-grade encryption,” according to the port. Neither the FBI or the Washington state Office of Cyber Security know of a decoder for it.”
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4.8 Million Patients Affected by 2021 July Healthcare Breaches, King County
Breach Type –Hacking, Data Breach
Compliancy Group
September 8th, 2021
-
“Hacking incidents have continually been the prime reason behind the escalating breaches targeting healthcare organizations.”
-
“There were 26 healthcare providers targeted by hacking incidents in July, affecting 3,200,815 patients, representing 69.63% patients affected by hacking.”
-
“But the incident, which also affected private and public systems in other states, spurred the Warren County to upgrade its technology.”
-
“King County Public Hospital District No. 2 d/b/a EvergreenHealth: 22,579 patients affected.”
Read More
Douglas County Servers, Douglas County
Breach Type –
Hacking, Data Breach
The Wenatchee World
March 29th, 2021
-
Douglas county was one of thousands of systems affected by the Hafnium attack on Microsoft servers
-
County employees spent three days updating the servers
-
No loss of county data was reported
Read More
City of Puyallup, Pierce County
Breach Type –
Unknown, Data Breach
The Suburban Times
February 18th, 2021
-
Third party vendor AFTS was victim of ransomware cyberattack
-
City officials believed no direct threat to the city was evident
-
Compromised data potentially included account numbers, names, addresses, and bill amounts
Read More
City of Auburn, King County
Breach Type –
Unknown, Data Breach
Auburn Examiner
February 12th, 2021
-
Third party vendor was victim of cyberattack, affected government operations
-
Potentially leaked information includes account numbers, names, and addresses
-
Officials believed sensitive personal information remained intact
Read More
The Office of the Washington State Auditor Employment Security Department, State of Washington
Breach Type –
Hacking, Data Breach
Bleeping Computer
February 1st, 2021
-
Washington's State Auditor office has suffered a data breach that exposed the information of 1.6 million employment claims
-
Bad actors exploited a vulnerability in a secure file transfer service from Accellion
-
The exposed claims were in data files containing sensitive personal information of Washington residents
Read More
Tri-City Herald
March 7th, 2021
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Auditor's Office confirmed data breach was over 3 year period
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Initially, Auditor's Office believed only 2020 claims were affected
-
Officials believed data included names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and banking information
Read More
City of Ellensburg, Kittitas County
Breach Type –
Unknown, Ransomware
YakTri News
December 21st, 2020
-
City government was victim of ransomware cyberattack
-
Local and federal law enforcement were contacted for assistance
-
Officials believed that the majority of their data remained encrypted
Read More
Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Park & Recreation District, Kitsap County
Breach Type -
Unknown, Malware
Bainbridge Review
March 8th, 2020
-
Servers were attacked by bad actor destroying employee and financial information leaving officials to pen and paper methods
-
The data does not seem to have been collected by bad actors upon initial assessment
-
Information for the public had not been accessed due to it being located on a separate server maintained by outside contractors
Read More
Benton County Government, Benton County
Breach Type - Phishing, Other
Government Technology
February 10th, 2020
- $740,000 stolen by bad actor likely originated from India
- Bad actor created false online domain to trick county officials
- County officials immediately reported the loss upon discovery
Read More
City of Lacey, Thurston County
Breach Type –
Hacking, Data Breach
K5 News
November 7th, 2019
-
Credit card information stolen by bad actors that hacked "Click2Gov" services
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Information was stolen after customers paid bill online
-
Officials believed customers that signed up for auto-pay likely had information stolen
Read More
City of Ellensburg, Kittitas County
Breach Type –
Phishing, Other
Daily Record
August 14th, 2019
-
City in Washington state victim of phishing scam
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Almost $200,000 was stolen by bad actors
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Officials remained confidant that city would be unaffected
Read More
City of Sammamish, King County
Breach Type – Hacking, Ransomware
Komo News
January 23rd, 2019
- Hackers attack city’s computer system
- City of Sammamish investigated level of damage
- State of Emergency was declared within the city
- Security expert brought in for assistance
- City states the hack has no effect on emergency services
Read More
Port of Longview, Cowlitz Co.
Breach Type - Hack
TDN
March 13th, 2018
- Hacks coming from Russia, Liberia, & Kazakhstan
- Unknown if personal information of past & current employees compromised
- Port mailing notifications to potentially affected
Read More
Town of Yarrow Point
Breach Type - Phishing
Seattle Times
February 25th, 2018
- Financial coordinator falls for business email compromise (BEC) scam
- Wires $49,284 to hacker posing as Mayor
- Money was immediately drawn by hacker when transfer was complete
Read More
City of Enumclaw
Breach Type - Cryptojack/Other
KIRO 7 News
February 16th, 2018
- W2 forms sent in phishing scheme
- Hundreds of city employees affected
- Citywide identity theft report filed with Enumclaw PD
Read More
Town of Yarrow Point
Breach Type - Ransomware
Stephan Lagerholm
October 29th, 2017
- Yarrow Point falls victim to cyber incident
- Files and systems inaccessible
- Town is working with police department to investigate
Read More
Seattle Times
February 25th, 2018
- Paid $9,170 worth of bitcoin to recover data
- Spent $46,972.21 for services of three companies during this attack
Read More
Washington Department of Health
Breach Type - Hack
CNN
June 27th, 2017
- Part of Islamic Union test hacks of government websites
- Hacked with pro-Islamic State messages
- Team System Dz
- Restored within an hour
Read More
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