Lewiston cyber attack underscores threat, Winona County
Breach Type –
Hacking, Data Breach
Winona Post
September 22nd, 2021
- “In Lewiston’s case, Falcon said the attackers simply cracked the city’s security from the outside. “The entry point from the analysis that was conducted points to a brute force attack, meaning that the attackers identified an open port on the firewall and used a script to basically try a number of passwords,”
- “Lewiston city leaders ultimately agreed to pay a $60,000 ransom — in the form of 1.5 Bitcoin — to the attackers. “The forensic team was the party in contact with what they termed the threat actor, and in the process of negotiating a ransom to be paid, ultimately that ransom was agreed to and was paid by the city,” Falcon said. The ransom was covered by insurance, so it did not cost the city directly, he added.”
- “Lewiston’s ransom didn’t work. The attackers took the city’s money, then demanded another $120,000 to release the data. “We knew there was a chance of re-extortion. We had been warned of that by the team that we hired,” Falcon said.”
- “The final outcome was that we were re-extorted and chose not to pay a second ransom and restored our systems with backups we were able to find available, but all of the other data on our system was lost,”
Read More
Ramsey County Family Health Division, Ramsey County
Breach Type –
Hacking, Data Breach
Twin Cities
January 29th, 2021
-
The County sent a notification to 8,700 clients that their data may have been accessed on or around Dec. 2nd
-
There had been evidence that the security was breached by bad actor seeking payment through a ransomware scheme
-
Some of the information exposed included names, addresses, dates of birth, dates of service, telephone numbers, account numbers, health insurance information, and medical information
Read More
City of Minneapolis Public website and Computer Systems, Hennepin County
Breach Type –
Hacking, Denial of Service (DoS)
The Hill
May 28th, 2020
-
Bad actors used DoS in cyberattack against city's website
-
IT personnel were able to restore vast majority of systems
-
Officials believed data remained intact and was uncompromised
Read More
Wright County Employee Email System, Wright County
Breach Type –
Phishing, Data Breach
Monticello Times
May 13th, 2020
-
Investigation revealed bad actors utilized phishing in cyberattack
-
IT personnel painstakingly scoured every email in each account
-
Names, addresses, DOB, SSN, DL, among possibly accessed information
Read More
Scott County Government Systems, Scott County
Breach Type –
Phishing, Malware
SW News
December 11th, 2019
-
Phishing cyberattack utilized by bad actors against county government
-
Lost revenue and repair costs totaled nearly $70,000
-
Officials doubt citizen information was compromised
Read More
Pine County
Breach Type –
Phishing, Data Breach
WCMP
October 22nd, 2019
-
Over 4,000 individuals were likely victims of massive phishing attack
-
County employee email account was breached by bad actors
-
Names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers were all likely stolen
Read More
Minneapolis Mayor Official Email, Hennepin County
Breach Type –
Phishing, Other
Washington Times
September 27th, 2019
-
Minnesota mayor was victim of phishing cyberattack, which compromised his official city email address
-
Local news outlets received emails asking recipients to open suspicious attached PDF file
-
Emails enticed potential victims with fictitious business proposal from city
Read More
Dakota County Social Services Department, Dakota County
Breach Type - Phishing, Data Breach
Data Breaches
April 12th, 2019
- The county had discovered that there had been unauthorized access to one of its employee’s emails
- Following the compromise, the county made sure to replace all active passwords and add authentication
- Around 1,000 people may have been exposed with sensitive personal information
Read More
Minnesota Department of Human Services
Breach Type - Phishing, Data Breach
Star Tribune
April 9th, 2019
- A data breach may have exposed over 11,000 individuals revealing sensitive information
- The DHS notified lawmakers that an email account had been compromised by a hacker logging into a staff email account
- It is unknown how much information was compromised but money transfers were requested by the hacker
Read More
Minnesota Department of Human Services
Breach Type - Phishing, Data Breach
Twin Cities
January 30th, 2019
- A Phishing Scheme compromised more than 3,000 people’s data
- An account was hacked and spoofed emails were sent in September 2018
- IT began to apprehend the attack a day after it happened
Read More
Social Services Department, Ramsey County
Breach Type - Phishing, Data Breach
The Lancaster News
December 12th, 2018
- Personal information of hundreds of Ramsey County Social Services clients potentially compromised
- Hackers gained access to the email accounts of dozens of county employees
- Data Security firm investigated breach and notified county in October
Read More
Minnesota Department of Human Services
Breach Type - Phishing, Data Breach
KSTP
October 17th, 2018
- Two employee email accounts compromised in phishing scheme
- Hackers exploited emails to send out spam emails
- Email accounts contained private data of DHS clients, potentially exposed in data breach
Read More
City of Albert Lea, Freeborn County
Breach Type - Phishing, Data Breach
ABC 6 News
August 28th, 2018
- City notified by FBI of hacking incident
- Phishing email infiltrated City of Albert Lea
- W-2 forms sent to hackers
- 330 current and former employees potentially affected
Read More
Ramsey County
Breach Type - Phishing, Other
Hacker Combat
August 11th, 2018
- Ramsey County detected suspicious activity within the network
- Implemented security measures for all employee accounts
- Email cyber attack compromised 30 employee email accounts of 4,000 targeted employees
Read More
Hennepin County Government Employees, Hennepin County
Breach Type - Phishing, Data Breach
Star Tribune
August 9th, 2018
- 20 Hennepin County employees fall victim to phishing scheme
- Phishing e-mails disguised as pay-raise notifications
- County customer data potentially exposed
- Hennepin County consists of 9,500 employees, blocking spam emails every quarter
Read More
Becker County
Breach Type - Ransomware
Echo Press
August 16th, 2017
- Virus took down website, disabled printers, was slowly corrupting IT networks
- County has uncontaminated server, where files were backed up the night before the attack
- Board members being advised against opening files from Becker County to avoid further contamination
- Email systems also hacked, hackers sending out insulting emails on behalf of county
Read More
Sterns County
Breach Type - Hack
USA Today
July 4th, 2017
- Part of Islamic Union test hacks of government websites
- Hackers claim they were testing government websites, not attacking
- Sterns county does not know cause of the hack
Read More
Minnesota State Government Database
Breach Type - Hacking, Data Breach
FOX 9
June 20th, 2017
- Minnesota State Government Database hacked by activist protecting fatal shooting of Philando Castile
- Hacker allegedly stole a list of 1,400 email addresses and passwords
- Hacker claimed they could impersonate Minnesota government officials or state employees with the information obtained
Read More
Crow Wing County Board
Breach Type - Ransomware
Brainerd Dispatch
September 29th, 2016
- Well timed file backup saved county from paying ransom
- Backup server unaffected by ransomware attack
- County is working on ways to improve firewall
Read More
City of Wadena
Breach Type - Ransomware
Wadena Pioneer Journal
July 29th, 2016
- Virus hits city hall computers
- Caused several files to be lost
- Virus turned out to be ransomware, locking multiple files
- No data breach of private information has been found
Read More
Prior Lake City Hall
Breach Type - Hack
Prior Lake American
June 16th, 2016
- Computer virus struck HVAC system
- No evidence of data breach of personal information
- Cost the city between $10,000 & $15,000 to fix issues
- Majority of the computers were cleaned, some files lost
- Virus mimicked ransomware, Cryptolocker, but lacked similar characteristics
Read More
BACK TO TOP
