Genesee County, Mich. officials are telling residents the ransomware attack it suffered has had a larger impact than originally thought and that many services are not likely to be quickly restored.
The county reported the attack to residents on April 2 on its Facebook page stating the attackers encrypted some files and demanded a ransom, which was not paid. At that time the county believed it had limited the extent of the damage and that its IT team would have most systems restored by the start of business on April 3 with the remainder coming online later that day.
This forecast proved overly optimistic and county officials
followed up on April 4 with a second Facebook post.
“The scope of the attack on Genesee County has turned out to
be more extensive than initially thought. While the encryption of data has
occurred, the evidence continues to show that no data has been released,” was
posted.
Genesee is still attempting to assess the scope of the
damage inflicted and warned residents services will be severely restricted for “some
time.” The county believes the attack was limited to encrypting its files and
that no data has been exfiltrated.
The county did not offer any details on what services are
currently unavailable, but its website appears to be functioning normally.
Gloss