Mississippi Cyber Attacks

Infrastructure Affected

Public Safety
Government
Medical
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Public Safety

Adam’s County Sheriff’s Office & Adams Co. CAD System, Adams County

Breach Type – Phishing, Ransomware

The Democrat
November 5th, 2019
  • Sheriff's Office employee accidentally opened suspicious email, causing virus to infect agency systems
  • CAD, phone lines, and management systems were all impacted by the cyberattack
  • Officials successfully identified ransomware as the culprit, computers and server cleaned and restored
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Lauderdale Co. Sheriff's Department & Lauderdale Co.

Breach Type - Other, Malware

Meridian Star
May 29th, 2018
  • Computer virus shut down Lauderdale county's computer network
  • Virus caused temporary loss of information
  • No county services affected
Read More
News Center ABC 11
June 4th, 2018
  • Virus locked employees out of system for almost two weeks
  • Lauderdale Co. Sheriff's department impacted for 13 days
  • County recovered all information
  • Established plan to create backup servers for the county
Read More
ZD Net
January 10th, 2019
  • System was infiltrated from weak & old password
  • Dharma ransomware variant affected most systems within department
  • Inhibited investigations and incidents
  • Halted all processes in Sheriff’s Department
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Local Government

Hinds County computer system remains under ransomware attack

Breach Type – Unknown, Ransomware

WAPT
September 11th, 2023
  • "Hinds County is still experiencing computer issues following a cyberattack. The Tax Collector's Office will remain closed on Monday. The Circuit Clerk's Office has also canceled jury duty for the week.”
  • "The Hinds County Tax Collector's office and other state offices were forced to close Thursday and Friday."
  • “County leaders said people behind the computer hack sent them a phone number to call to find out how much the ransom is. Officials contacted federal authorities.”
  • ”Officials said the computer system could be back online early next week but also said it could be longer..”
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Official George County, Miss. computer systems hacked for ransom

Breach Type – Phishing, Ransomware

WJTV
July 18th, 2023
  • "Official George County computer systems were targeted in a cyber ransom attack that County officials described as a ‘blunt force attack from all angles.”
  • "The cyberattack began on Saturday, and Flanagan said the attack breached their systems on Sunday night. Ken Flanagan said the attack is a classic example of a phishing scam."
  • “The email in question looked extremely professional,” Flanagan said. “Flanagan said a county employee likely clicked on that email, leading to the system meltdown that affected 130 county employees.”
  • ”The identity of the hacker is unknown; however, Flanagan said the hacker is willing to hold the entire George County computer system hostage for ransom.”
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Mississippi election websites hit by Election Day DDoS incident, Hinds County

Breach Type – Other, DoS

State Scoop
November 9th, 2022
  • ”Websites operated by the office of Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson appeared back online Tuesday evening, following an apparent distributed denial-of-service attack that lasted much of Election Day."
  • "The office’s public-facing websites, which include information for voters, were unavailable for large parts of the day. The outages had no impact on the casting and counting of votes, state and federal officials said Tuesday.”
  • ”An abnormally large increase in traffic volume due to DDoS activity caused the public facing side of our websites to be periodically inaccessible this afternoon,” read a statement late Tuesday from Watson’s office and the Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services. “We want to be extremely clear and reassure Mississippians our election system is secure and has not been compromised.”
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Pascagoula Metropolitan, Jackson County

Breach Type – Unknown, Malware

GovTech
December 10th, 2019
  • City computer systems largely unaffected in cyberattack
  • Bad actors demanded ransom, compromised some information and phone systems
  • Local law enforcement computers affected as well
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Medical

Rhysida Ransomware group added three more US hospitals to the list of victims on its Tor leak site after the PROSPECT MEDICAL attack., Jackson County

Breach Type – Unknown, Ransomware

Security Affairs
September 10th, 2023
  • "The Singing River Health System’s three hospitals – Pascagoula Hospital, Ocean Springs Hospital, and Gulfport Hospital, as well as its dozen-plus medical clinics – are affected by the incident, which began over the weekend. The health system employs about 3,800 people.”
  • "Several services at the hospitals, including laboratory and radiology testing were impacted by the IT systems outage. Singing River said it is working to process all paper-ordered lab tests and radiology exams as quickly as possible, based on priority.”
  • “The Singing River Health System runs 3 hospitals and 10 clinics and is the second largest employer on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.”
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Kudos to North Mississippi Health Services for fast detection and disruption of attack, Lee County

Breach Type – Phishing, Data Breach

DataBreaches.net
September 3rd, 2023
  • “In a website notice dated September 1, NMHS explains that on July 3, they discovered unauthorized access through an employee’s email account after a phishing email was unintentionally opened.”
  • “Our Security Operation Committee (SOC) promptly shut down the system, ending the unauthorized access within 17 minutes. Upon investigation, it was determined some of the employee’s emails, which may have included attachments, were potentially accessed.,” they write.
  • ”The information in the attachments that may have been accessed was limited to patients’ names, dates of birth, primary physicians’ names, and diagnoses or dispositions upon recent discharge from North Mississippi Medical Center-Tupelo."
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Singing River Health System cyberattack currently under investigation, Jackson County

Breach Type – Unknown, Ransomware

WLOX
August 23, 2023
  • “Singing River Health System computers remain shut down Monday after suspicious activity was detected on the computer network over the weekend."
  • ”According to Interim CEO Laurin St. Pe, the cyber investigation confirmed that the activity was a cyber attack. While the computers at every hospital and clinic are offline, staff members are in downtime procedures.”
  • ”Literally, we are documenting on paper,” said St. Pe. “There will be some delay, and ultimately, it will be the physician’s decision if they want to delay if it’s an elective procedure. The clinical team we have in place the support team, the physicians, all the other providers we have at Singing River literally pulling together and working as a team to make sure we continue to take care of our patients. That is our number one priority of Singing River.”
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Mississippi's Coastal Family Health Center Falls Victim to Hacker, PHI Exposed, Harrison County

Breach Type – Hacking, Data Breach

HealthITSecurity.com
July 7th, 2021
  • “The Mississippi-based Coastal Family Health Center (CFHC) is investigating a hacking attempt that tried to shut down the hospital’s computer operations and did manage to expose patients’ protected health information (PHI.) "
  • ”That attempt (to shut hospital operations) failed and Coastal Family was still able to treat patients and provide service to the community.”
  • ”On June 4, 2021 the investigation revealed that some of the files accessed contained personal information of patients. While at this time CFHC has no evidence that any information has been misused. "
  • “The breached data included patient names, addresses, social security numbers, medical insurance information, and health and treatment information.”
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AAA Ambulance, Forrest County

Breach Type – Unknown, Ransomware

Jems
October 6, 2020
  • Ambulance service stated that they discovered a potential exposure of sensitive patient information
  • Ransom where attack was discovered around July 1 and led to services taking action to prevent encryption
  • It is unknown if this information is being used in a malicious manner however public statement still have been released
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Memorial Hospital, Harrison County

Breach Type - Phishing, Data Breach

Sun Herald
February 15th, 2019
  • Services have been offered to patients with compromised information
  • Around 30,000 patients may have been exposed through this attack
  • It took 11 days until the hack was learned about leaving information exposed the entire time
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Forrest General Hospital, Forrest Co.

Breach Type - Hack

DataBreaches
February 1st, 2018
  • Forrest General Hospital falls victim to phishing scheme
  • Hackers infiltrated employee email account for two days
  • Patient private information potentially exposed
Read More
Healthcare Analytics News
March 15th, 2018
  • Forrest General Hospital suffered data breach
  • 1,670 patients potentially affected in exposure
Read More

 
Ocean Springs & Singing River Hospitals

Breach Type - Hack

Sun Herald
January 16th, 2018
  • Attack detected on Singing River Hospital network
  • Singing River evaluated potential data theft
  • Shut down & reboot of systems occurred to isolate attack
  • Hospital employees resorting to downtime procedures, ensuring patient care is uninterrupted
Read More
Health Leaders Media
January 17th, 2018
  • Singing River Health System under cyber-attack for two days
  • Spokesperson for Singing River described attack as malware
Read More

 
Urgent Care Clinic of Oxford

Breach Type - Ransomware

Data Breaches
October 1st, 2016
  • Discovered ransomware when systems responded slowly
  • After attack, clinic shut down server's remote access
  • Russian hackers responsible
  • Clinic unclear if patient data accessed, offering free credit monitoring
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Education

Vicksburg-Warren School District sends notifications for "Grief" ransomware incident in 2021, Warren County

Breach Type – Unknown, Ransomware

Data Breaches
May 16th, 2022
  • "On May 12, 2022, Vicksburg-Warren School District in Mississippi issued a breach notification. Its explanation begins, “On or around May 28, 2021, VWSD detected unusual activity within its digital environment.”
  • "Investigation revealed that files with personal information “may have been accessed or acquired.”
  • "Threat actors calling themselves “Grief” claimed to have 10 GB of data and had posted some images of data allegedly exfiltrated from the district’s system."
  • "The notice does not indicate how many people are being notified and whether it is only employees, students/parents, or both."
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George County School District Hit by Cybersecurity Attack

Breach Type – Unknown, Hacking

WKRG
June 16th, 2021
  • George County Schools are the latest to be hit by a cybersecurity attack.
  • The George County School District identified suspicious activity that disrupted their computer systems on June 8.
  • There is no evidence that any student or staff information has been impacted at this time…investigation into this activity is ongoing.
Read More

 
Yazoo County School District, Yazoo County

Breach Type – Hacking, Ransomware

WLBT 3
October 17th, 2020
  • Federal investigations are underway following IT system hack
  • School board has voted to pay a company $300,000 to fix issues
  • Superintendent states that they were aware of cyberattack last Monday but did not specify what information was stolen or compromised
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Wayne County School District, Wayne County

Breach Type – Hacking, Other

WDAM
October 5th, 2020
  • Cyber attack has prompted FBI investigation following consultation on July 2
  • A special funding account was potentially exposed leading investigation
  • Day to day operations in school district have not been affected due to the attack
Read More

 
Jackson Public Schools, Hinds County

Breach Type - Unknown, Malware

WAPT
February 20th, 2020
  • Bad actors conducted cyberattack against school district
  • Third party IT specialists were utilized in mitigating damage
  • Access remained limited while officials checked equipment
Read More

 
Lincoln County School District, Lincoln County

Breach Type – Unknown, Ransomware

Clarion Ledger
November 5th, 2019
  • Four campuses in Mississippi hit in ransomware cyberattack
  • Attack negatively impacted school computer network
  • Officials stated that the attack encrypted systems
Read More

 
Mississippi Valley State University

Breach Type - Ransomware

Delta Daily News
March 10th, 2018
  • Ransomware attack hits Mississippi Valley State University
  • Campus goes without internet service
  • System shut down due to ransomware variant known as "SamSam"
Read More

 
Lamar Co., Marion Co., & Columbia School District

Breach Type - Hack

WDAM
April 11th, 2016
  • Security breach affects employees of Lamar, Marion, & Columbia school districts
  • FBI and IRS have been notified & investigating the hack
  • Four employees from Marion county had their tax returns rejected
Read More

 
Oxford School

Breach Type - Ransomware

Local Memphis
February 9th, 2016
  • FBI and Police leading investigation after school system infected with ransomware
  • Attack impacted systems for 8 campuses
  • Faculty, students, & staff cannot function without the network
  • School refuses to pay ransom, working to restore system
Read More

 
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