Rhode Island Cyber Attacks

Infrastructure Affected

Public Safety
Government
Medical
Education
 
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Public Safety

Town of Greenwich & East Greenwich Police Department, Kent County

Breach Type – Unknown, Ransomware

East Greenwich News
December 8th, 2019
  • Town computer systems taken offline after ransomware cyberattack
  • IT officials and third party vendor worked to mitigate losses
  • Town utilized redundant systems such as backup servers, losses were minimal
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Pawtucket Fire Department, Providence County

Breach Type - Unknown, Ransomware

Providence Journal
June 8th, 2019
  • The fire department began to experience difficulties in their systems and are attempting to rectify the issue
  • Additional resource were needed as they were brought in to help with the challenges this poses
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WRPI
June 13th, 2019
  • The fire department is still being forced to work without computers following the hack
  • Several firefighters have been contacted through email with their private information being exposed
  • Most work has resorted to old methods such as pen and paper as the computers were slowly being restored
Read More

 
Rhode Island State Police

Breach Type - Ransomware

Gov Tech
August 23rd, 2016
  • Hackers threaten to permanently encrypt years of data
  • More than 30 cyber experts worked on this case
  • Beat the hackers by saving files
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Local Government

Why Newport City Hall email remains down following server outage, Newport County

Breach Type – Phishing, Malware

The Newport Daily News
June 14th, 2022
  • “City Communication Manager Thomas Shevlin told The Daily News on Friday any time there is an issue with the city’s servers, the city treats the situation as a possible cyber attack.”
  • “Nicholson said the city and its IT team are not very concerned about the virus, but they still don’t know where it originated from or how much of the internal system it affected, however, he does know it affected the city's email server.”
  • “Some of the city’s internal network is back online, but they do not have a clear idea of when the rest of its services, like email, will be operational again.”
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RIPTA data breach bigger than previously, Providence County

Breach Type – Hacking, Data Breach

ABC 6 News
February 1st, 2022
  • "Officials say a data breach at the state agency that operates Rhode Island’s public bus service compromised the personal information of about 22,000 people"
  • "about 5,000 agency employees as well as 17,000 other public employees were affected. The breach remains under investigation, both internally, and by the state attorney general."
  • “Much of the information compromised was contained in documents from the state’s former health plan administrator, stored on non-encrypted RIPTA servers."
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ABC 6 News
April 14th, 2022
  • "The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority said Thursday it paid hackers $170,000 in ransom money after a massive data breach in August."
  • "The hack exposed the names, birth dates, and social security numbers of thousands of state employees, some of which didn’t even work for the agency."
  • “RIPTA will continue to work with third party vendors to ensure that sensitive information is not transmitted to RIPTA inappropriately in the future,” said RIPTA."
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Town of East Greenwich, Kent County

Breach Type – Unknown, Ransomware

WPRI
December 8th, 2019
  • A cyber attack knocked out parts of the Town's computer network
  • In response the town severed any outside network connections to prevent continual exposure
  • In a public release the Town Manager Andrew Nota warned others to take precautions to prevent cyber attacks and the like
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City of Exeter, Washington County

Breach Type – Unknown, Ransomware

WPRI
January 26th, 2020
  • Ransomware used in cyberattack against city government
  • Officials worked with state law enforcement to investigate
  • IT personnel were able to restore data via backups, did not pay ransom
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Deptartment of Children, Youth, and Families, Department of Human Services, & Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals

Breach Type - Phishing

WPRI
June 4th, 2018
  • Phishing attack targeted Rhode Island state departments
  • 400 state computers infected with malware
  • Hardware devices with lower processing power crashed in the agencies
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State Treasurer's Office

Breach Type - Phishing

WPRI
April 3rd, 2018
  • State Treasurer's office falls victim to email phishing scheme
  • Scheme spread to other state agencies & municipalities
  • Notified city information technology
  • No personal information appears to be compromised
Read More

 
City of Providence Hacked

Breach Type - Hack

Go Local Prov
December 15th, 2016

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Medical

Care New England, Providence County

Breach Type – Unknown, Malware

ABC 6
June 19th, 2020
  • Care New England publicly confirmed that they were the victim of a cyber attack
  • There seems to be no patient information exposed as CNE continues investigations and attempts at system restoration
  • CNE's payroll system was impacted causing a redundancy in paychecks as employees are compensated
Read More
ABC 6
June 22nd, 2020
  • CNE was able to confirm that their systems were fully restored and operations are nominal again
  • All internal operations are back to normal
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Thundermist Health Center, Providence County

Breach Type - Ransomware

WPRI
November 29th, 2018
  • Thundermist Health Center targeted in ransomware attack
  • Thundermist maintained normal hours of operation with minimal impact to patient care
  • Appointments dependent on access to online medical records were canceled as a result
  • Health center recovering files in hopes to operate normally as soon as possible
Read More

 
University Gastroenterology

Breach Type - Ransomware

University Gastroenterology
September 9th, 2016
  • Hacker encrypted files within the network
  • University Gastroenterology has implemented additional security measures as precaution
  • Investigations were inconclusive if private patient info was accessible to hacker
  • Offered free credit monitoring and identity protection
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Education

Brown University, Providence County

Breach Type – Unknown, Malware

Bleeping Computer
April 2nd, 2021
  • Brown University suffered a cyber attack that focused on devices that were running Windows
  • IT staff disabled systems as a protective measure
  • The school site and school library site are functional again, and an investigation is ongoing
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East Greenwich High School, Kent County

Breach Type – Unknown, DDoS

East Greenwich News
March 14th, 2021
  • Students were attending an Q&A with actor LeLand Gantt when the YouTube stream was filled with racist and sexist comments
  • During the presentation the High School was hit by a DDoS attack
  • This is not the first attack to take place within the school and both incidents are being investigated
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Coventry School District, Kent County

Breach Type – Unknown, Ransomware

Syracuse
January 26th, 2020
  • Officials force to pay nearly $200,000 to bad actors
  • Ransomware was used in cyberattack against school
  • District took measures to mitigate future damage
Read More

 
Newport Public Schools, Newport County

Breach Type – Unknown, Malware

Whatsupnewp
August 6th, 2019
  • Newport Public Schools victim of malware attack, internal network affected
  • Attack was isolated to school system network, city of Newport unaffected
  • IT department placed additional security measures, updated hardware
Read More

 
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